This article first appeared in Sunstar.General Santos in 2006
HERS was one of the more celebrated murder cases involving journalists in the country.
Hers was among the more recent ones.
Hers, too, was among the very few that led to the conviction of the assassins and in just a span of 17 months, a record by Philippine justice system standard.
If only the other cases were handled as swiftly, the number of journalists slain in the line of duty or simply because they are journalists would have not reached the number that stood as it is now – 60, according to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and 86 according to the list of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP).
For the friends and the orphans of Marlene Esperat, the conviction of the assassins in Cebu City on October 6 last week was a partial triumph of justice. They said it is just a closure to one chapter of her treacherous murder.
Instead of heaving a big sign of relief, her relatives believe that the masterminds should suffer the same fate as their henchmen.
Maundy Thursday murder
Marlene “Madam Witness” Esperat, who once worked as a resident Ombudsman of the Department of Agriculture in Region 12, was gunned down inside her residence in Tacurong City in the presence of her two horrified children on March 24.
She died on the spot.
Her assassins immediately fled on board a waiting getaway motorcycle.
Esperat was 18th journalist killed during the Arroyo administration.
To date, twenty-eight journalists have been killed since President Gloria Arroyo assumed power with the ouster of President Joseph Estrada.
For a while, it looked liked her death would become a mere footnote to the long list of murdered members of the press.
For one, Esperat’s first husband Severino Arcones, a radio commentator of the hard hitting Bombo Radyo in Ilioilo, was himself gunned down in October 1989.
E-load
While the assassins of Esperat were supposed to be seasoned guns for hire, their decoy and lookout turned out to be an amateur.
It was said that one of the convicted murderers, Randy Grecia left behind the most important piece of the puzzle in the murder case.
Grecia made the mistake of buying an e-load for a prepaid mobile phone number from Esperat, who owned a variety (sari-sari) store, just moments before the gunman, Jerry Cabayag, shot dead the hard-hitting journalist.
Members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Region 12 (CIDG 12) were able to trace the mobile phone number, to whom Grecia sent an e-load, to a certain Annie Go.
That lead led to a series of breaks culminating into the arrest, with the help of CIDG in Region 11, of the rest of the assassins, among them Cabayag, Rowie Barua and Estanislao Bismanos.
Motive
After their arrest, the assassins readily confessed, through separate extrajudicial confessions, of their involvement in the murder of Esperat.
They also named the alleged masterminds behind the killing.
They said they were paid P120,000 to kill Esperat.
At the time of their interrogation and before the case against them were filed in court, police said several police officials and government officials were involved in the killing.
When the case was filed in the regular courts in Tacurong City , the assassins pointed to former Department of Agriculture Region 12 (DA 12) finance officer Osmeña Montañer and DA 12 regional accountant Estrella Sabay as the alleged masterminds.
For some technicalities, however, the two DA officials were dropped from the charge sheet, prompting private prosecutor Nena Santos to ask the Supreme Court to transfer the hearing and trial of the case to Cebu City .
With strong pressures from international press organization such as the International Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, the case was transferred to Cebu City .
Santos said Esperat was killed for her exposé on graft and corrupt practices in the agriculture department.
At the time of her death, a businessman who now resides in the United States said Esperat had accused top agriculture officials in the country of diverting hundreds of millions of pesos of fertilizer funds and pointed to the involvement of government officials in the smuggling of imported meat.
Esperat also accused Montañer and Sabay as “corrupt” DA officials. Esperat worked on numerous cases, such as the unremitted government’s share of GSIS premiums of DA 12 employees from January to December 1997.
Her hard hitting columns and commentaries in Midland Review, a local community newspaper in Tacurong City , undoubtedly incurred the ire of some of the government officials.
International solidarity
Last week at the promulgation of the Esperat murder case, Cebu regional trial court Judge Eric Menchavez sentenced Estanislao Bismanos, Gerry Cabayag and Randy Grecia to life.
Had the death penalty not been removed, the three would face death penalty. The court also ordered the three to pay Esperat’s family P175,000 in civil damages.
The conviction of Bismanos, Cabayag and Grecia – Barua was acquitted after he agreed to become state witness – was promptly greeted with welcome by the IFJ and CPJ.
But the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also urged authorities to “redouble their efforts in investigating the many unresolved journalist murders in the Philippines .”
“While we’re pleased that important steps have been taken in prosecuting the killers of our colleague Marlene Garcia-Esperat, we urge authorities to complete their work in this case by trying those who are accused of ordering this terrible crime,” CPJ executive director Joel Simon said.
“This is a rare win in the battle for justice for the overwhelming numbers of journalists brutally murdered in the Philippines ,” IFJ President Christopher Warren said.
Since 2001, 46 media practitioners have been killed in the Philippines under the rule of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Last week’s verdict is only the fourth conviction in a journalist murder case. The other convictions to date relate to the deaths of Nesino Paulin Toling, Odilon Mallari and Edgar Damalerio.
“We are hopeful that this victory for press freedom will set a solid example for future trials of journalist killers and send a strong message to those who seek to silence the media through brutal murders that they will be brought to justice,” Warren said.
IFJ is an organisation representing more than 500,000 journalists in over 115 countries.
It has been calling on the Philippine government to take immediate action and investigate all other unsolved journalist murder cases and ensure these senseless killings do not continue.
The quest continues
The lawyer of Esperat, Nena Santos, said that the case of her client is far from over although the gunmen were already convicted.
Now the task, she said, has shifted to making sure the masterminds of Esperat murder are also placed behind bars.
With the Department of Justice ordering the reinstatement of the Montañer and Sabay as suspects in the slaying, Santos hopes that their conviction would finally put to rest the said slay case.
Valmie Mariveles, elder sister of Ms. Esperat, also questioned why not all the four has been sentenced for carrying out the killing of the victim.
“Barua should have been also convicted,” said Mariveles, who attended the promulgation together with the slain journalist’s four children and husband George.
Rachel Khan, chair of the University of the Philippines Journalism Department, earlier said the culture of impugnity still pervades in the press community with scores of media killings remain unsolved.
She said the early arrest and conviction of all suspects in the slaying of journalists is the only way to put a period to the list of slain members of the Philippine media.
CMFR likewise issued a statement after the promulgation of the case.
“Arguably one of the key factors for the (Esperat) case’s relative success or considerable progress has been the consistent coverage by both the national and local media,” CMFR said in a statement.
