Justice Delayed, Still Better than None

Telltale Signs

By Rodel E. Rodis

The families of Bubby Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito have been waiting for justice for more than 11 years since November 24, 2000 when operatives of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), then under the command of Gen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, abducted, tortured and executed Dacer and Corbito. Their families may take comfort in the news this past week that a family that has waited even longer for some measure of justice finally found it when the new Ombudsman reversed the actions of her predecessors and filed charges against 10 Philippine Navy officers for the murder of Navy Ensign Philip Andrew Pestaño on September 27, 1995.

I first wrote about this case on December 10, 2007 (“Death of an Ensign”) after reading an account of it by Jesuit educator Fr. James Reuter (“Justice at 3 A.M.”). Pestano, an idealistic graduate of the Ateneo de Manila High School in 1989, entered the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), and graduated as an Ensign in the Philippine Navy in 1993, when he was then assigned as a cargo master on a Navy ship.

Sometime in 1995, Fr. Reuter wrote, Pestaño discovered that “the cargo being loaded onto his vessel included logs that were cut down illegally, were carried to the ship illegally, and were destined to be sold, illegally… Then there were 50 sacks of flour, which were not flour, but shabu (methamphetamine) – worth billions. Literally, billions … And there were military weapons which were destined for sale to the Abu Sayyaf.” As cargo master of the ship, Pestaño refused to approve the illegal cargo despite orders from his superior officers that he do so.

According to Fr. Reuter, “Pestaño’s parents received two phone calls, saying: “Get your son off that ship! He is going to be killed!” When Phillip was given leave at home, his family begged him not to go back. Their efforts at persuasion continued until his last night at home, when Phillip was already in bed.”

“His father came to him and said: “Please, son, resign your commission. Give up your military career. Don’t go back. We want you alive. If you go back to that ship, it will be the end of you!” But Phillip said to his father: “Kawawa ang bayan! (Pity the country)” And he went back to the ship.”
“The scheduled trip was very brief – from Cavite to Roxas Boulevard – it usually took only 45 minutes. But on September 27, 1995, it took one hour and a half. When the ship arrived at Roxas Boulevard, Ensign Pestaño was dead.”

Within a day, the Navy investigators determined that Pestaño had committed suicide because a “suicide note” was found in his cabin. Phillip’s family objected to this finding as they pointed out that the note was not in his handwriting and he was an honor student at Ateneo and engaged to be married in a few months.

After two years of prodding by Pestaño’s family the Philippine Senate conducted an investigation on the Pestaño death in 1997. In the course of the Senate investigation, witnesses testified that before he died, Pestaño refused to authorize the loading of 14,000 board feet of illegal hardwood logs in Tawi-Tawi even though its governor, Gerry Matba, had a gift for his good friend, Admiral Pio Carranza.

Over Pestaño’s objections, the illegal logs were loaded in Tawi-Tawi and off-loaded in Cavite just before the ship sailed for its home port in Manila in what would normally be a 45 minute trip. The trip lasted more two hours in what was later described as an “unusual dogleg route”.

After hearing from numerous witnesses, the Senate Report (#800) concluded: “Pestaño did not kill himself aboard the BRP Bacolod City… He was bludgeoned unconscious and then shot to death somewhere else in the vessel. His body was moved and laid on the bed where it was found.”
“The clear absence of blood spatters, bone fragments or other human tissues is physical evidence more eloquent than a hundred witnesses,” the Senate report observed. “It is impossible for a person who has just sustained a fatal head injury to walk from some other place in his room, lie on his bed and drop dead…”

“He was killed by an assailant, necessarily aboard the BRP Bacolod City”, before it docked at the Navy HQ on Roxas Boulevard. The attempt to make it appear Pestano killed himself inside his stateroom was so deliberate and elaborate that one person could not have accomplished it by himself.”

The Senate Committee also found it suspicious that without conducting an investigation, the Navy ruled within 24 hours that it was suicide. Naval intelligence commander Tirso Danga insisted on the suicide claim when he testified before the Senate committees on human rights and national defense hearings on May 5 to Sept. 3, 1997.

Murder, concluded the committees led by Sen. Marcelo Fernan. Pestaño was bludgeoned, shot and his body rigged to appear as a suicide.

The cover-up of the murder of Pestano exacted other victims. Among them was Petty 0fficer (PO2) Zosimo Villanueva who was the officer who tipped Pestaño on the presence of illegal cargo on the ship, specifically about “the concealed bulk of illegal drugs (hidden) in the more than 20 sacks of rice cargoes aboard the ship.” A week after Pestaño’s murder, Villanueva was dispatched by his superiors on mission where he mysteriously “washed away in a sea mishap”.

Another casualty was Ensign Alvin Parone who was the officer who called Pestaño’s parents to warn them of plans to kill their son. He was also killed, then Sen. Alfredo Lim said, “a victim of another unsolved murder.”

Also missing and presumed dead is Petty Officer (PO3) Fidel Tagaytay who was the duty officer on board Pestaño’s ship. When he was summoned to testify before the senate, he disappeared. His wife, Leonila, has been desperately searching for him, begging the authorities to investigate his disappearance. He is “absent without leave” is all the Navy brass will tell her.

The Senate directed the Office of the Ombudsman, then headed by Aniano Diserto, to “identify the persons who participated in the deliberate attempt to make it appear that Pestaño killed himself.”

Desierto ignored the Senate’s directions. After he was replaced by Merceditas Gutierrez, the Pestano investigation met with the same indifference as Gutierrez refused to even meet with the parents of Pestano.

When the parents of Pestano signed an impeachment complaint against Gutierrez, she finally acted. As Raul Pangalangan wrote in his Inquirer column, “She dismissed it. To add sting to the injury, she served her dismissal order on Pestaño’s parents the day after they signed the impeachment complaint against her.”

The Pestano family filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the case dismissal by Gutierrez and this motion was acted upon by Conchita Carpio-Morales, the Ombudsman recently appointed by Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III

On January 10, 2012, Morales reversed the decision of her predecessor and filed murder charges against Capt. Ricardo Ordoñez; Cmdr. Reynaldo Lopez, Hospital Man 2 Welmenio Aquino, Lt. Cmdr. Luidegar Casis, Lt. Cmdr. Alfrederick Alba, Machinery Repairman 2 Sandy Miranda, Lt. Cmdr. Joselito Colico, Lt. Cmdr. Ruben Roque, PO1 Carlito Amoroso and PO2 Leonor Igcasan.

More Navy officers are culpable not just for the crime of murder but for the cover-up and for the murders of those gallant officers who refused to participate in the conspiracy.

Fr. Reuter wrote: “Some military men are killed in battle. They are given a hero’s burial. But Phillip died for a much deeper cause – he was trying to preserve the integrity of our Armed Forces. He died out of loyalty to the Philippines, in an effort to keep the oath that he made when he graduated from the Philippine Military Academy.”

Justice was delayed for more than 15 years for the Pestano family but it finally came. The Dacer and Corbito families are hoping that they too will see justice some day.

(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or send them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call             (415) 334-7800      ).