JEDDAH, 25 Agust 2007 — An elder sister of Dante Rivero, one of the three victims in Jeddah’s grotesque body parts killings of 2006, has said her family will reject any offer of blood money payment for the freedom of the convicted killers.

“Sorry na lang. Ang kailangan lang naming ay hustisya at ang hustisya na ‘yon ay kamatayan din nila(Sorry, what we want is justice and that is for the death sentence to be served),” Nonette Rivero said in an interview with Arab News on Monday and Thursday. She was interviewed by telephone from her home in the northern Philippine province of Pampanga.

“Walang katumbas na pera ang buhay nang kapatid ko. Walang katumbas na pera (No amount of money could equal my brother’s life. No amount of money),” she stressed.

She was reacting to feelers made by Philippine officials for eventual negotiations for blood money payment after a regional trial court in Jeddah last month sentenced three of the seven accused to die by beheading.

Sentenced to die were Edison Gonzales, his brother Roland, and Eduardo Arcilla for the murder of Rivero and his two friends, Reno Lumbang and Jeremias Bucod.

The rest of the accused — Victor Alfonso, Omar Basilio, Efren Dimahon and Joel Sinamban — were each sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes and a prison term of eight years.

Nonette said what was really painful was that the convicts were presenting themselves to the public as if they were the aggrieved party.

“We all know that many other Filipinos were made to suffer in jail for some time because of what these convicted criminals did,” she said. Some 75 people were rounded up by police in Jeddah following the killings in April last year in a bid to locate the culprits.

Many of these were colleagues or friends of Rivero at the Sarawat supermarket at Jeddah International Market along Madinah Road.

Except for the seven who were charged in court, all were released later, but many of them remain traumatized to this day by the bad experience.

Four of the seven confessed to the lesser crime of helping remove the evidence and scattering the victims’ body parts around Jeddah. They also helped police recover some of the body parts.

Consul General Pendosina N. Lomondot, citing court records, said Lumbang and his driver Jerry Bucod were killed by the Gonzales brothers and Arcilla in the heat of a disagreement that arose while they were playing a card game inside a house.

Lomondot said Lumbang and his cohorts later went to see Rivero at his apartment and forced him to come with them.

Police cited the confessions made by the four that Edison Gonzales wanted Rivero killed because Rivero knew where Lumbang and Bucod were that night.

Nonette said they were told that the Lumbang brothers and Arcilla have consistently denied the charges for which they were convicted, and even spread word that Rivero could have killed his two friends over money and that he has fled to the Philippines.

“My brother wouldn’t steal from his friends, much less kill them,” she said.

Police have said Rivero belonged to the group of Lumbang, which was a competitor of Edison Gonzales’ group in running jueteng (an illegal numbers game popular in the Philippines) in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia.

Gonzales was said to be losing bettors to Lumbang’s group because of his failure to pay those who won.

Nonette said talk propagated by Edison Gonzales’ camp that her brother was the killer was demolished with the result of DNA tests showing that the recovered body parts belonged to Rivero and Bucod.

Nonette was among those accompanied by a Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs lawyer to Jeddah last May to submit DNA samples to the Saudi police. The samples were later matched with samples taken from the body parts.

Police said there was no need for DNA tests for Lumbang since his body was positively identified last year.

Pressure From Politicians

Nonette said her family was satisfied so far with the court’s decision, although she said if she had her way, all seven should get the maximum penalty.

She said her family was also aware that certain politicians were putting pressure on the country’s foreign service officials to ensure that none of the death row convicts would be executed.

Still, she said her family was satisfied with the support given by the Philippine government, particularly by the Philippine Consulate.

She also thanked the Sarawat management for assuring her family that they would get all benefits due Rivero, who worked at the supermarket’s meat section.

Still Far From Over

Consul General Lomondot has said last month’s court ruling on the case was just the initial step and that case still has to go through two higher levels, normally taking years to complete.

He explained that under Saudi law, the acceptance of blood money payment by the victim’s heirs is no guarantee that a death row convict would be spared death.

He said that in cases where the court of last resort finds a crime committed to be “heinous,” forgiveness of the convict by the victim’s kin will not stop the execution.