Quintoses File Second Plea in Murder Case

(http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080414-130211/Quintoses-file-2nd-plea-in-murder-case)

MANILA, Philippines—The family of another Quintos brother is seeking the reversal of the Court of Appeals’ decision acquitting former Mindoro Occidental Rep. Jose Villarosa and three others in the Quintos double murder case.
Earlier, the parents of Michael T. Quintos, Paul’s younger brother, made the same plea.
In a partial motion for reconsideration, Paul’s wife said the appellate court ignored evidence that would have shown the participation of the four in the 1997 murders of the Quintos brothers.
The Quintos family argued the appellate court should not have decided on the case because they were still appealing the Supreme Court ruling that denied their motion to have Justice Noel Tijam inhibit himself from the case.
After eight years of trial, Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Ma. Theresa Yadao found Villarosa and his co-accused guilty of double murder and sentenced them to death.
But the appellate court, in a decision penned by Tijam, reversed the murder convictions of Villarosa and farmers Ruben Balaguer, Gelito Bautista and Mario Tobias, but upheld the guilty verdicts on farmers Eduardo Hermoso, Manolito Matricio and Josue Ungsod.
The appellate court ruled Hermoso’s extrajudicial confession implicating all seven accused in the killings was admissible, but it could not be used to convict the former lawmaker and the three others since it was uncorroborated by other evidence.
The brothers were sons of Villarosa’s political rival, former Mindoro Occidental Gov. Ricardo Quintos.
Paul’s heirs said the appellate court focused on Hermoso’s extrajudicial confession made before the National Bureau of Investigation, where he had made another confession, and a judicial one, before the Mamburao Municipal Trial Court.
There was also plenty of evidence to prove the four men’s involvement in the crime, they pointed out.
“Moreover, what is frustrating and clearly erroneous is the ignorance of this Honorable Court of the other evidence of the Appellees showing the conspiracy between the Appellants in the killing of Paul and Michael Quintos,” they said.
Evidence ignored
Among those not considered by the court, they said, was the fact that Hermoso and Matricio were Villarosa’s political followers and illegal occupants of the Quintoses’ Golden Country Farms Inc.
They also insisted that Villarosa was present at the October 1997 meeting of the conspirators to the killing, and that Villarosa had given money to the families of Hermoso, Matricio and Balaguer.
Villarosa had interceded for Matricio when the latter was being arrested during a congressional hearing, they said, while another accused, Orlando Estanes, was employed by Villarosa’s wife.
Paul’s heirs said Estanes had issued a confession that interlocked with Hermoso’s. Since Hermoso’s and Estanes’ confessions corroborated each other, they bolstered the guilt of all seven accused, they said.
But this circumstantial evidence was ignored by the court, they said.
“From the foregoing, the Appellees humbly submit that the acquittal of the Appellant Villarosa and his cohorts was inevitable and that the decision of the Honorable Court is marred with grave abuse of discretion,” they said.