BY
BULATLAT
Posted
4:30 p.m. March 1, 2006
The six farmers
accused of killing brothers Michael and Paul Quintos – sons of a local
landlord in Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro – on Dec. 13, 1997 were meted out
the death penalty this morning in an 80-page decision by Judge Teresita
Yadao of Branch 81, Quezon City Regional Trial Court.
Manolito
Matricio, Eduardo Hermoso, Mario Tobias, Josue Ungsod, Ruel Bautista, and
Ruben Balaguer – who had been charged together with Mamburao local
politician Jose Villarosa, a known political opponent of the victims’
father Ricardo – were all meted the maximum penalty of death even as the
Lucio de Guzman Command of the clandestine New People’s Army (NPA) had
earlier admitted to the killing. Meanwhile, Villarosa has yet to be
sentenced.
In an interview
with Bulatlat, lawyer Edre Olalia, counsel for three of the
accused, said the farmers – who were locked in a land dispute with Quintos
– ended up as “sacrificial lambs” in a battle between their accuser and
Villarosa.
“They could not
have been the killers of the Quintos brothers,” Olalia added. “Aside from
the NPA’s public admission of the killing, there are also witnesses
testimonies pointing to the perpetrators as all young men. We can see that
the ‘Mamburao 6’ are all middle-aged.”
In a separate
phone interview, with Bulatlat, Danilo Ramos – chairman of the
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement) of
which the six are all members – hit Yadao for relying too much on the
testimony of Hermoso – who, he said, had been “tortured by the goons of
Quintos.” Likewise, he scored Yadao for giving “too much credence” to the
testimonies of six procesucution witnesses whom
he described as “paid hacks” of Quintos.
“Without these
testimonies, the case would collapse,” Ramos said.
Ramos also said
that their organization plans to contest Yadao’s decision before the Court
of Appeals and, if need be, the Supreme Court. “We will definitely fight
this out,” Ramos said. “We will exhaust all legal, paralegal and
meta-legal means to secure their freedom.”
Bulatlat
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