GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc, The Philippine Star, Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Task Force RCBC, the posse hunting the killers of ten bank employees May 16 in Cabuyao, Laguna, is compromised. Its men were involved in the obvious rubout of four “suspects” days later in adjacent Batangas province. That means they silenced them in order to hide something. Shushing is no way to solve crime. The early foul-up only indicates that the massacre may never be fully explained and prosecuted.
From the start the crime was atypical. The robbers did not just take an amount they precisely knew to be that big on that day from the two bank managers who knew the vault combination. They also executed all nine employees and one depositor Nazi-style — with one bullet each in the head as they knelt in line on the floor. Why was everyone killed, when the only usual fatality in bank heists is the security guard who fought back? Did the gangsters feel they were totally identified?
Witnesses came forward to tell what they saw of the massacre. So detectives were able to pinpoint from mug files five gunmen — “two of them from the uniformed service”, most likely cops. Then suddenly, the rubouts.
The task force claimed that two shootouts occurred on May 21 and 22 in Tanauan, Batangas, as operatives were following up leads. In the first, in Barangay 4, a certain Pepito Magsino supposedly shot it out with policemen who had accosted him. Then, in Barrio Pagaspas, Vivencio Javier, Angelito Malabanan and Rolly Lachica did the same. All four allegedly were members of the Lucido-Javier-Galica holdup gang that operates in Southern Tagalog.
Human rights investigators quickly saw the lie in the police report. Ten eyewitnesses swore that Javier, Malabanan and Lachica were killed separately. Javier even shook hands with an officer he addressed as “Sir” before others shot him four times by his bedroom window. Arms raised, Malabanan was shot 14 times at the gate of the farm of Javier’s brother. Lachica was dragged out of bed in the farm hut, and then shot in the head. Presumably Magsino too summarily was executed the night before.
The rights lawyers see no link between the “suspects” and the bank robbery-murders. But they might turn up something on deeper look.
The Lucido-Javier-Galica Gang that the task force is talking about is long dead. Crime boss Armando Lucido was killed by lawmen in mid-2002; “Galica” and “Javier” have been unheard from, probably dead or retired.
The leaderless hoods reportedly have joined Fajardo brothers Rolando and Harold, long-wanted crime bosses in Tanauan’s Barrio Saplang. The Fajardo Gang has political and police connections in Batangas, and so is left untouched so long as it operates elsewhere. It was known to have pulled the PNCC payroll and Jollibee-Calamba heists in Laguna years back.
Did the Fajardos lead the RCBC-Cabuyao massacre? Was the silencing of the bank employees and then of the “suspects” done to prevent exposure of the gang’s protectors?
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Back to the Supreme Court’s defense of Romy Neri’s silence over three questions from the Senate regarding the NBN-ZTE scam:
Neri, as petitioner for executive privilege, was allowed to comment on the Senate’s motion for reconsideration. It was his turn to defend the High Tribunal.
Through counsel, Neri twitted the Senate for “misreading” the original ruling: “As respondents would put it, the Decision emasculates the Senate, renders inutile its power to investigate, vests witnesses from the Executive Department with some kind of blanket immunity from Senate questioning, and made executive privilege a ‘refuge scoundrels’... [They] exaggerate and distort. Speaking less to this Court than to the crowd below, respondents hysterically proclaim that the Decision will pave the way for ‘autocracy in our government’.”
He claimed the contrary: “Properly read, the Decision adds more stringent requirements than Ermita v Senate before executive privilege can be invoked. It requires that the communication relate to a ‘quintessential and (sic) non-delegatable presidential power’, and that advisor be in ‘operational proximity’ to the President. Fortunately, both these two additional requirements were met in [my] case.”
At one point, Neri seemed to implicate Ben Abalos alone to sleaze: “[I am] not covering up or hiding anything illegal. No law on foreign laws or on the NEDA has been violated. The bribe offer was rejected, and both the offer and its rejection were disclosed to respondents.”
In the next, he indicated more culpability: “Respondents speculate that the President’s conversations with [me] ‘may reveal the extent of the President’s participation in the NBN Project despite her knowledge of a bribe offer’... There is actually even no need for respondents to speculate because it is of judicial notice that the President even witnessed the signing if the NBN contract with ZTE after [my] disclosure to her of the Abalos bribe offer. Whatever [I] and the President discussed cannot alter that fact.”
In closing, Neri said he “did not (sic) outrightly refuse to attend the Senate hearings” after invoking executive privilege. He will attend if other matters need to be clarified, provided the Senate submits a questionnaire.
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