Abadilla slay convict seeks Aquino clemency

Lenido Lumanog (second from right) pleads with President Benigno Aquino III to grant him executive clemency so he could spend his remaining years with his family. INQUIRER file photo

Behind bars for more than 17 years for a crime he maintains he did not commit, Lenido Lumanog is pleading with President Benigno Aquino III to grant him executive clemency so he could spend his remaining years with his family.

Lumanog is one of the five men convicted for the 1996 slaying of Col. Rolando Abadilla, a feared military officer during the Marcos dictatorship.

In an open letter from the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), Lumanog begged the President to grant his plea for executive clemency “to be with my family for whatever is left of my life.”

Lumanog, who had a kidney transplant in 2003 while in prison, has been confined at the NKTI in Quezon City for the past one year and eight months.

Letter to Aquino

While he survived the life-threatening ailment in prison, Lumanog, now 57, had to cope with his body’s rejection of the organ transplant, leading to many complications.

“I am now suffering from chronic kidney rejection which makes my situation very difficult.  I have been certified disabled because of my several ailments,” he said in his Dec. 15 letter to the President, a copy of which was furnished the Inquirer.

Lumanog said his four daughters and a son were all working to pay for his huge medical expenses.

“I continue to wait and hope for my justice and freedom,” he wrote Mr. Aquino. “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Here’s wishing that you would gift me and my family the freedom I’ve been longing for this Christmas.”

“Hoping for your humanitarian consideration,” he added.

The Board of Pardons and Parole recommended the commutation of the sentence for the so-called “Abadilla 5” in November 2011. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima pushed for conditional pardon, or executive clemency, in 2012.

Doubt to this day

It has been more than a year and Malacañang has yet to act on it.

“No update,” De Lima said in a text message on Monday.

She said then that there was “moral certainty” about the lack of reasonable doubt on the guilt of the accused.

“For some justices, the guilt of the accused was not established beyond reasonable doubt. There is doubt on their guilt,” she said.

“There are circumstances pointed out in the dissenting opinion that create doubt on the correctness of the verdict up to this very day. Those accused have professed innocence. They’re very passionate about this.”

The Supreme Court affirmed in February 2011, the Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding the conviction of Lumanog, Cesar Fortuna, Joel de Jesus, Rameses de Jesus and Augusto Santos by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court.

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

Abadilla, an intelligence chief of the now defunct Philippine Constabulary who gained notoriety as an alleged torturer of political prisoners during martial law, was ambushed and killed while driving on Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on June 13, 1996.

The communist hit squad Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) claimed responsibility for the killing.

If the five men had been wronged, a future conditional pardon would rectify this, De Lima has said.

Timeline: ‘Abadilla 5’

Highlights of the fight for freedom of the “Abadilla 5”:

June 13, 1996. Retired Col. Rolando Abadilla, a Constabulary (national police) intelligence officer during the Marcos regime, is ambushed and killed while driving his car on Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City. He was 54.

The communist death squad Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) claims responsibility.

June 19, 1996. Police arrest tricycle driver Joel de Jesus of Quezon City, citing information from a security guard who claimed to have seen the killing.

Tortured by police, De Jesus implicates his neighbors—Lenido Lumanog, Rameses de Jesus, Cesar Fortuna and Augusto Santos—in the crime, leading to their arrest.

The suspects became known as the “Abadilla 5.”

Lumanog and Fortuna are tagged by investigators as the gunmen and  the three others as lookouts.

Police elicit confessions from the five, who say they were beaten, electrocuted, suffocated and given the “water treatment.” Police deny the allegations.

Aug. 11, 1999. Quezon City Judge Jaime Salazar convicts the five and sentences them to death by lethal injection. The conviction is based solely on the testimony of one eyewitness and the “tortured” confessions of the Abadilla 5. The guilty verdict was not corroborated by any physical evidence—fingerprints at the crime scene and guns used.

Dec. 26, 1999. The ABB issues another statement, signed by its commanding officer Carapali Lualhati. He says Abadilla was “meted out revolutionary justice … for his blood debts to the people as the harshest berdugo (executioner) of the Marcos dictatorship.”

He says the Abadilla 5 “are mere fall guys (who) have nothing to do with the ABB.”

January 2000. Fr. Robert Reyes petitions to reopen the case. The “running priest” wants to present in court a piece of evidence—a gold-plated Omega De Ville Quartz 1377 wrist watch he says was turned over to him by an ABB leader.

Reyes says the ABB leader told him the watch was taken by the ABB from Abadilla during the ambush.

Salazar rejects Reyes’ petition. The Supreme Court upholds Salazar.

October 2000. Amnesty International condemns the torture of the Abadilla 5.

It says: “The case … illustrates a fundamental failure in the protection of human rights and a pattern of torture of criminal suspects in the Philippines.”

April 2003. Lumanog undergoes a kidney transplant.

April 2008. The Court of Appeals affirms the conviction of the five, saying the uncorroborated testimony of the lone witness was enough to establish their guilt. Even if the claims of torture were true, this did not mean they were innocent, it says.

The court, citing the abolition of capital punishment, reduces the death sentence on the five to 40-year terms with no parole.

Sept. 15, 2010. The Supreme Court affirms the conviction. Weeks later, the Abadilla 5 ask the court to reverse their guilty verdict.

Feb. 8, 2011. Voting 9-4, the Supreme Court throws out their motion for reconsideration.

June 11, 2011. The Abadilla 5 ask President Aquino for compassion in a letter signed with their blood.

“We’re no longer seeking justice, we just appeal for your understanding … give us a chance to be reunited with our families … . We are begging, knocking on your heart to grant our appeal for freedom,” they say.

With Reyes and Comelec Commissioner Grace Padaca as witnesses, the Abadilla 5 slit their wrists and stamp the letter with their blood.

November 2011. The board of pardons recommends to the President the commutation of the sentences to 16 years. The Abadilla 5 have been in prison for 16 years.

April 27, 2012. Lumanog renews his plea for pardon. He says prison doctors suspect  problems with his transplanted kidney.

Dec, 21, 2012. Mr. Aquino grants pardon to eight elderly inmates but not to the Abadilla 5.

March 14, 2013. Lumanog renews his appeal to Mr. Aquino to free him before Easter. He tells the Inquirer: “I am afraid I would die before I am released.” Marielle Medina, Inquirer Research

Source: Inquirer Archives

Originally posted at 05:01 pm | Monday, December 23, 2013

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