ZAMBOANGA CITY, 7 October 2006 — A court in the central Philippines yesterday sentenced three men, including a former army sergeant, to life imprisonment for murdering a journalist who had campaigned against corruption.
Judge Eric Menchavez of the Cebu Regional Trial Court ordered Estanislao Bismanos, Gerry Cabayag and Randy Grecia jailed for 40 years for the March 24, 2005 shooting death of Marlene Esperat, a journalist based in the southern city of Tacurong in Mindanao.
The three had pleaded guilty to her murder earlier while a fourth defendant, military intelligence officer Rowie Barua, was acquitted for insufficient evidence.
The motive for the killing of Esperat, a radio broadcaster who also published a local newspaper called the Midland Review, was not established in the trial, officials said.
Esperat was shot inside her home in Tacurong after writing about corruption in the Department of Agriculture. Prosecutors initially charged six people with murder, including Osmeña Montaner, a regional finance officer of the department, and Estrella Sabay, the department’s chief regional accountant.
Esperat had reportedly accused both officials of corruption in her broadcasts. The two officials had been implicated as masterminds in the murder through the confessions of Bismanos and Barua. Barua had been employed as Sabay’s bodyguard.
But a Tacurong court that initially handled the case before it was transferred to Cebu City had dropped the charges against the two officials on a technicality.
But in his decision, Judge Menchavez noted that there was sufficient evidence that “they deliberately and consciously adopted the means of execution employed by them.”
Following the ruling, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday ordered state prosecutors to immediately reinstate murder charges against Montaner and Sabay and obtain arrest warrants for them.
“I have directed the prosecutors to immediately submit a motion to reinstate Osmeña Montaner and Estrella Sabay as accused and to ask for the issuance of warrant for their arrest so that they can be brought to court for trial,” Gonzalez said.
He also ordered the Bureau of Immigration to put them the two officials on its watchlist pending issuance of a hold departure order.
Menchavez said in a phone interview that the fourth accused, Rowie Barua, who later testified as a prosecution witness, was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Victory for Press Freedom
The International Federation of Journalists and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines hailed the verdict as a victory for press freedom in the country, where at least 46 journalists have been slain since 2001, according to the groups.
“This is a rare win in the battle for justice for the overwhelming number of journalists brutally murdered in the Philippines,” IFJ President Warren Christopher said in a statement.
“We are hopeful that this victory for press freedom will set a solid example for future trials of journalist killers and send a strong message to those who seek to silence the media through brutal murders that they will be brought to justice,” he said.
But he pointed out that the verdict was only the fourth conviction in a string of cases of murdered journalists in the country.
NUJP chairman Joe Torres, in a statement, also welcomed Gonzalez’s order to reinstate the charges against the alleged masterminds in the Esperat slay. “We appreciate the immediate action of Secretary Gonzalez to order the prosecution of the alleged masterminds of the killing,” he said in a press statement.
“We hope it would be the start of a serious pursuit for the resolution of other media killings,” he added.
Nevertheless, Torres noted that “the battle for press freedom is still far from over,” noting that the verdict in the Esperat case is “only the fourth conviction on cases involving journalist murders.”
Jose Pavia, executive director of the Philippine Press Institute, welcomed the court’s decision and the prosecution’s move to go after the alleged masterminds.
Pavia, also a trustee of the Freedom Fund for Filipino Journalists, attended the promulgation. “We in the PPI and FFFJ have been monitoring the cases involving violence and killings of journalists. We were hoping that we would get another case finished and we were hoping we could get conviction on this case,” he said.
The other convictions to date were in cases filed against the killers of Nesino Paulin Toling, Odilon Mallari and Edgar Damalerio.
The NUJP says 86 journalists have been slain since the ouster of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, 46, or more than half of them, in the five years since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power.
International media watchdogs have described the Philippines as among the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. When asked by the Inquirer, the three accused said they regretted killing Esperat. They also said they confessed to the killing out of guilt and hoped that the court would reduce their sentence. (Additional input from Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
