FACES OF THE NEWS: Sept. 8, 2019

Illustration by RENE ELEVERA

Reynaldo Bayang

Reynaldo Bayang, Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP) executive director, disclosed at a Senate hearing that presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo had referred to him a letter from the daughter of heinous crime convict Antonio Sanchez seeking executive clemency for the former Calauan Mayor.

Panelo had been Sanchez’s defense lawyer when he was on trial for the rape and killing of Eileen Sarmenta and the killing of her friend Allan Gomez in 1993.

Panelo had previously denied that he had anything to do with the impending but aborted release of the convicted rapist and murderer under the good conduct time allowance law.

Although this was an application for clemency, the media bore down on the Palace official just the same for never mentioning the letter at all.

Much has been made about Panelo’s referral of the letter to the BPP using his Malacañang office’s letterhead, but the bottom line was that Bayang found no reason to free Sanchez on executive clemency because of “the gravity of the offenses he had committed.”

Bayang’s decision was commended by senators who, like the general public, felt outraged at how Sanchez almost got away with murder.

Thelma Chiong

Thelma Chiong was a full-time homemaker when she was thrown into the spotlight following the rape-slay of her two daughters, Marijoy and Jacqueline.

Since then, she has assumed a very public role as a feisty mother out to seek justice for her daughters who were abducted, raped and killed by seven men — two of them scions of influential families in Cebu.

The court sentenced all the accused to death after they were found guilty of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with homicide and rape.

In 2006, their death sentence was commuted to life terms when then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo abolished  capital punishment.

The head of Crusade Against Violence, however, found herself seeking justice anew upon learning that three of the seven convicts had recently been released under the good conduct time allowance law (GCTA).

But justice proved within reach when public outrage over the release of convicts involved in heinous crimes under the GCTA law led to the sacking of Bureau of Corrections chief Nicanor Faeldon, and President Rodrigo Duterte ordering those released under GCTA to surrender. So far, two of the Chiong convicts have surrendered.

Iluminada Gomez and Ma. Clara Sarmenta

Old wounds bled anew and bitter memories came back when Iluminada Gomez and Ma. Clara Sarmenta learned that the man behind the killing of their children, former Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez, was set to be released for good conduct.

The mothers of University of the Philippines students Eileen Sarmenta, who was gang-raped, and Allan Gomez appeared at the Senate hearing and told senators about the emotional distress and heartbreak they felt upon hearing of Sanchez’s impending freedom, which was aborted.

How could this convict be eligible for good conduct time allowance when he enjoyed illegal perks and was caught hiding drugs in prison?

Moreover, he has refused to pay the court-ordered indemnity amounting to P12 million to the families of his victims. Why, his family still lives in the properties that the government had garnished for nonpayment of taxes!

While they are not interested in what the two mothers described as Sanchez’s dirty money, Mrs. Gomez and Mrs. Sarmenta said the former mayor’s demeanor showed that he had no remorse even after years behind bars.

How can they forgive him when he hasn’t even asked forgiveness or admitted his crime?

The aborted release of the controversial ex-mayor stirred up a virtual hornet’s nest as the Senate hearing uncovered other irregularities, among them the alleged sale of good conduct time allowances to the families of convicts who want them released early, and the alleged practice of adding other crimes to keep inmates in prison when their sentence was about to end.

While the relief of Bureau of Corrections chief Nicanor Faeldon, who signed Sanchez’s release order only to recall it minutes later (or so he says), provides a degree of consolation, the pain lingers for the two mothers over the brutal deaths of their loved ones.

Should the death penalty be revived, media had asked Mrs. Sarmenta.

She had initially said yes, but later retracted her statement. She was a Christian after all, she said, and besides, death would be so easy.

Heinous crime convicts deserve life in prison, where they can think about their crime and their victims while they live, Mrs. Sarmenta said.

Elvira Sanchez

Convicted former Mayor Antonio Sanchez’s common-law wife, Elvira, made some startling revelations during the recent Senate hearing on the premature release of convicts because of the good conduct time allowance law.

Public uproar had derailed the planned release of the former town mayor found guilty of murder and rape.

At the hearing, Elvira recounted how the family learned through an anonymous text message about Sanchez’s supposed release. The senators were skeptical: not only did the family believe an anonymous source to the point of coming all the way to Manila, but Elvira claimed that she had inadvertently destroyed her phone that same morning after throwing it out of pique from all the death threats she said she had been receiving.

But what stunned listeners during the hearing was Elvira’s unapologetic declaration that the family had no intention of paying the court-ordered P12-million damages to the families of Sanchez’s victims as part of the judgment against their paterfamilias in 1996.

Why should they pay when the mayor was innocent of the crime, Elvira asked, repeating the alibi already junked by the court during the trial.