MANILA, Philippines—The mastermind of the gruesome “Cochise-Beebom” double murder in April 1990 has been granted executive clemency by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Rodolfo M. Manalili—who, along with four others, drew double life terms for abducting and killing Ernesto “Cochise” Bernabe II and his girlfriend Ana Lourdes “Beebom” Castaños—was among the 10 prisoners whose sentences were commuted by Ms Arroyo on March 26, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said.

Ermita released the names of the prisoners who had been granted clemency during his regular press briefing on Wednesday.

Manalili’s sentence was shortened to 20-25 years.

In what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, Bernabe, 26, and Castaños, 22, were abducted by armed men as they were about to enter a hamburger restaurant on Timog Avenue in Quezon City on April 25, 1990.

They were killed the next day in Pampanga province; their bodies, which bore multiple stab wounds, were found two months later.

A trial court found Manalili, Roberto Lising, Felimon Garcia, Robin Manga and Enrico Dizon guilty of the murders and sentenced each of them to double life imprisonment in 1992. The ruling was affirmed by the Supreme Court six years later.

It was the Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP) that had recommended clemency for the prisoners, according to Undersecretary Anthony Golez, a deputy spokesperson of Ms Arroyo.

“The President ministerially signs [the recommendation]. It goes through a process,” Golez said.

He could give no details on the commutation of sentence of any of the prisoners, and referred the reporter to the Department of Justice to find out the basis for the recommendation.

‘Good conduct’

Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Acosta said Manalili, who has served 18 years of his sentence, could be released immediately if the BPP would credit to him seven years of “good conduct time allowance.”

“It depends on their computation … We’ll have to wait for the updated prison time record,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

Acosta said her office had recommended Manalili for executive clemency because he was qualified for it. (Manalili is supposed to serve a maximum of 40 years behind bars.)

“If you’ve done 17 years, you’re already qualified for commutation. Only 17 years is required for convicts with double life sentences because they serve the two sentences collectively. For those with a single life sentence, only 15 years is needed to qualify,” she said.

Supt. Bartolome Bustamante of the Bureau of Corrections said the commutation did not mean that Manalili would be automatically released from the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City, where he is detained.

“We have not released anyone since last week. He still has to serve his sentence if it’s commuted,” Bustamante said.

He said his office did not rely on “faxed letters” and was still awaiting the original copy of the commutation order signed by Ermita.

Bloody decade

The Cochise-Beebom double murder was one of the sensational cases in the 1990s, which also saw the killing of Maureen Hultman, Eldon Maguan and Estrellita Vizconde and her daughters.

At the time, Bernabe had just graduated from the University of the Philippines’ College of Law and was reviewing for the bar exams, and Castaños was a graduating mass communication student, also at the UP. Both excelled in academic and extracurricular activities.

On that fateful evening, they were accosted by armed men as they walked toward the front door of Dayrit’s Hamburger, forced into a car and brought to a motel in San Fernando, Pampanga, where they were killed.

According to court records, Manalili hired policemen Lising and Dizon and former Constabulary soldier Manga through Garcia to arrest one Robert Herrera, whom Manalili had suspected of killing his brother Delfin.

Manalili ordered the four men to meet with his employee Vic Lisboa who could point to Herrera and his whereabouts.

Family relations

Late in June 1990, a police source was quoted as saying that Herrera was the boyfriend of Delfin Manalili’s ex-wife, Joy Liz, who was the sister of Castaños’ father.

On April 23 and 24, 1990, Lising, Dizon, Garcia and Manga, together with Lisboa, staked out the Castaños residence in the hope of seeing Herrera, to no avail.

The next day, they resumed surveillance at around 5 p.m. Two hours later, they were alerted by Lisboa that Herrera had entered the Castaños residence.

Later, they saw a man and a woman (Bernabe and Castaños) leave the house in a Mitsubishi Lancer sedan. They tailed the pair up to the restaurant.

As soon as Bernabe and Castaños alighted, the men pointed their guns at them, and forced them into their car.

Manalili later testified that the men had mistaken Bernabe for Herrera.

Front-page news

The abduction of the pair was front-page news for weeks.

On June 21, 1990, two security guards working in a warehouse in San Fernando went to the Pasay City office of Bernabe’s mother, Rosie, and told her they had information on her son.

The guards said they had been informed by warehouse workers Raul Morales and Jun Medrano that their boss, policeman Lising, had killed a man and a woman in the warehouse.

In his account to authorities, Morales said that in the early morning of April 26, 1990, Lising and some armed men arrived at the warehouse with Bernabe and Castaños.

Morales said he heard Castaños plead innocence to a man she called “Uncle” (later identified as Manalili): “Parang awa mo naman, wala naman kaming kasalanan.”

According to Morales, Lising and Garcia stabbed Bernabe to death in the warehouse. The men then forced Castaños into a car and drove off.

On June 25, 1990, Bernabe’s body was exhumed by investigators. Castaños’ body was found the next day in a shallow grave two kilometers away.

Authorities arrested Lising, Dizon and Manga on separate occasions in 1990 and 1991. Garcia surrendered in January 1991.

In Australia

Manalili was arrested in Australia by then National Bureau of Investigation Director Alfredo Lim, now the mayor of Manila.

He admitted to hiring the other four men to get Herrera in exchange for P50,000. But he claimed that when he saw that they had gotten the wrong people, he immediately told Lising to release the latter.

Manalili said he flew to Australia in June 1990 after Lising demanded P60,000 from him and threatened to kill or implicate him in the double murder if he did not comply.

On July 1, 1992, a Quezon City trial court found the five men guilty of double murder and sentenced each of them to double reclusion perpetua.

The court also found Lising, Dizon and Manga guilty of slight illegal detention and sentenced each of them to reclusion temporal (imprisonment of from 17 years, four months and one day to 20 years).

It ordered the five men to pay P3.5 million in damages to Bernabe’s family and P900,000 to Castaños’ family.

The Supreme Court affirmed the double murder decision on Jan. 16, 1998. But it modified the crime of slight illegal detention to kidnapping and sentenced Lising, Dizon and Manga to reclusion perpetua, thus upping their punishment to three life terms. With Cyril L. Bonabente, Inquirer Research