Abadilla 5 told: Don’t lose hope

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima clarified that the President did not reject her recommendation that the five—Joel de Jesus, Rameses de Jesus, Cesar Fortuna, Lenido Lumanog and Augusto Santos—be granted executive clemency. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

While President Aquino may not have acted on a recommendation to set them free by Christmas, the five convicted killers of Army Lt. Col. Rolando Abadilla should not lose hope, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said.

The President granted pardons to eight elderly inmates of the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City during the holidays, but not the “Abadilla 5.”

De Lima clarified that the President did not reject her recommendation that the five—Joel de Jesus, Rameses de Jesus, Cesar Fortuna, Lenido Lumanog and Augusto Santos—be granted executive clemency.

“There has been no rejection of my recommendation. What I know is that the President himself is thoroughly reviewing the matter,” she said in a text message. “They should not lose hope.”

After news of the presidential pardon for the elderly inmates came out, Lumanog, confined at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute for treatment of his transplanted kidney, wondered if they should “wake up and stop dreaming.”

De Lima had earlier expressed the hope that the President would act on her recommendation in time for Christmas.

While the Department of Justice’s Board of Pardons and Parole recommended the commutation of the sentences of the Abadilla 5 in November 2011, De Lima pushed for conditional pardons, saying there was “reasonable doubt” that the five were guilty.

De Lima noted that some justices dissented in the Supreme Court decision that upheld the conviction of the Abadilla 5. She also said that when she looked into the case some years back when she was chair of the Commission on Human Rights, questions about the credibility of the witness against the five nagged at her.

Tortured to admit crime

The Supreme Court affirmed in February 2011 the Court of Appeals’ decision upholding the conviction of the five for the 1996 killing of Abadilla meted out by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court. Abadilla, intelligence chief of what was then the Philippine Constabulary, had gained notoriety as an alleged torturer of political prisoners during martial law.

The five insisted that they were innocent and accused their police captors of torturing them into admitting the crime.

The communist New People’s Army took responsibility for the killing and turned in Abadilla’s Rolex watch as proof.

Activist priest Fr. Robert Reyes, who advocated for their release from the start, aired the same message as De Lima to the Abadilla 5.

“In a few months, the Abadilla 5 will be celebrating, or is it more appropriate to say mourning, 17 long years of imprisonment for a crime that they did not commit. My feelings of frustration and indignation do not compare with the anguish of five innocent men hoping against hope behind bars,” Reyes said in an e-mailed statement.

Struggle for truth

While currently undergoing “religious formation” at the Franciscan novitiate in Laguna, Reyes said he continued to pray for the Abadilla 5.

“I have personally witnessed their struggle for truth, justice and freedom, and most of all seen how in spite of the bizarre behavior of the courts and the other branches of government, they continue to keep the faith in the God of hope,” he wrote.

Responding to Lumanog’s lament, Reyes said: “The Abadilla 5 and all those in prison need to learn the art of waiting in hope and patience. But compared to the majority of prisoners, the Abadilla 5 have reason to wait in hope, for they are not alone in the possession of a crucial fact. Someone else, and not they, is responsible for the murder of Col. Rolando Abadilla.”