Backbone
Can an Ombudsman who has a backbone instead of a wishbone make a difference?
Read last week’s Court of Appeals decision that upheld Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales’ order to fire 10 Navy men. They were implicated in the 1995 death of Ensign Philip Pestaño who refused to load hot timber and drugs.
Associate Justice Jose Reyes Jr. wrote 9th division’s decision: Carpio Morales rightly reversed earlier dismissal of charges by previous ombudsmen Aniano Desierto and Merceditas Gutierrez, it said. Both had turned a blind eye to the evidence.
“Sixteen years and four months,” noted an Inquirer editorial January last year. “That’s how long it has taken the death of Pestaño to be recognized for what it has been: cold blooded murder.” Conviction remains a long way off… But it offers a glimmer of hope that closure will grace this case.
Well, conviction came—finally.
An Ateneo honor student, Pestaño graduated from Philippine Military Academy. As “RPS Bacolod City” cargomaster, Pestaño refused to load 14,000 board feet of illegal logs—a Sulu governor’s gift to Admiral Pio Caranza.
In September, Pestaño was shot in his cabin as the ship meandered on a bizzare hour-and-a-half trip from Cavite to Roxas Boulevard. Normally, that trip takes 25 minutes. Logbook entries disappeared. Sans investigation, the Navy ruled within 24 hours: “Suicide.”
Within four months of Pestaño’s death, comrades “disappeared in mysterious circumstances,” the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva found.
P02 Zosimo Villanueva tipped Pestaño on drugs stashed in 20 sacks of rice aboard the ship, then senator Alfredo Lim revealed. Villanueva was “lost at sea”—but his three companions survived. Only a bloodied speedboat was found.
PO3 Fidel Tagaytay was BRP Bacolod City’s radio operator. He vanished when summoned to testify. Wife Leonila’s efforts to trace his whereabouts was brushed off by the claim that Tagaytay was “absent without leave.” Nobody in the Navy bothered to look.
Ensign Alvin Farone contacted Marissa, Pestaño’s sister, Marissa saying he wanted “to tell what really happened to Philip.” He died before he could do so.
Then, Lt Carlito Amoroso (PMA class 1994) moonlighted as close-in security for Admiral Carranza. Amoroso was not a crew member of BRP Bacolod City. Yet, he tagged along on trips from Tawi-Tawi and to Navy HQ unmanifested. Was he riding shotgun for those controversial logs earlier or drugs?
Amoroso became scarce since then. Did he resign? Or has he been tucked into a low-profile post? The Navy isn’t keen on locating, much less asking him questions. Lim fumed: “To date, as like the others, (Amoroso) got off scot-free.”
From May to September 1997, the Senate committees on human rights and national defense examined the Pestaño case. Senate Report No 800, written by the late Senate president and former Supreme Court chief justice Marcelo Fernan, concluded: Pestaño was bludgeoned, then shot and his body rigged to appear as suicide.
“Identify the persons who participated in the deliberate attempt to make it appear that Pestaño killed himself,” Fernan wrote then Ombudsman Aniano Desierto. In response, Desierto ordered the Military Ombudsman: Archive the Pestaño case since evidence is patchy. Desierto’s record as ombudsman was so tainted that former senator Lorenzo Tañada refused to even address him directly.
Over 15 years have elapsed since the death of the victim, the UN noted. Authorities have yet to initiate an independent investigation. No suspect was prosecuted, or tried, let alone convicted. This breached the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Like Desierto, Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez also refused to see Pestaño’s parents. But in August 2007, Gutierrez wrote the UN, saying the Pestaño slay, indeed, “merited further investigation”. She then did nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
“When Gutierrez finally acted on Pestaño plea, she dismissed it,” then Inquirer columnist now publisher Raul Pangalangan wrote. ”To add sting to the injury, she served her dismissal order on Pestaño’s parents a day after they signed the impeachment complaint against her.”
Arrogance wilted into whimpering when, in March 2011, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Gutierrez. She became the second official after President Joseph Estrada to be impaled.
Raps ranged from Gutierrez’ inaction on scams, “delay in investigation of ensign Philip Pestaño’s death,” to losing 9 out of every 10 cases it filed. She was trashed for shoving under the rug charges against former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the first gentleman in the ZTE broadband scandal.
The Supreme Court dismissed, on February 2011, Gutierrez’ bid to block the impeachment. The House impeached her with 212 votes and 46 against. (There were 4 abstentions). Gutierrez bristled at the “flimsy” decision, adding she was ready to face a Senate trial.
Gutierrez crumbled on April 29 and quit. She personally handed her resignation letter to President Benigno Aquino III who promptly accepted it.
“We in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi already knew the truth right after news of Pestaño’s murder broke,” recalled Inquirer columnist Noralyn Mustaffa “The Senate and the UN found the truth after their own investigations. But their findings amounted to nothing under the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It had to take Conchita Carpio-Morales, an appointee of President Aquino, to right something unjust.”
Ramrod-straight Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales made a difference. “Who shall find a valiant woman?” asks the Book of Proverbs. “Far, and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.”
