There’s this old saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” It’s a favorite in the Philippines because it almost always happens, and the Vizconde verdict affirms it.
It all went downhill on April 23, 2010, when the National Bureau of Investigation admitted that it did not have the semen samples taken from the body of Carmela Vizconde, and the Parañaque City Regional Trial Court did not have it either. More than that, it all went downhill when it took the court almost nine years to convict Hubert Webb and co., and another 10 years for the Supreme Court to reverse the ruling and free them. It’s all downhill for Hubert, who spent almost two decades in prison, for a crime that – according to the decision – he did not commit. More than that, it’s all downhill for poor old Lauro Vizconde, who lost everything in a crime where, as of right now, the true murderers of his family are yet to be convicted.
The real problem with the Vizconde Massacre trial is not the verdict. The court justice system should not – and cannot – make a decision solely on the merits of Hubert et al. being in prison for far too long. The justice system should not – and cannot – make a decision because it pities Lauro Vizconde and his situation, having lost everything and growing ever more sickly in his advanced age. The justice system should not – and cannot – make a decision based on the results of a trial by publicity, either.
What the justice system did not – and should have – done was to fulfill something so fundamental: the right to a fair and speedy trial. It is that guarantee that was deferred – for almost two decades – in the Vizconde verdict.
“The possible ranks higher than the actual,” Martin Heidegger once wrote. Whenever I think of that statement, I depart from the notion that man is a thinking being, but that thought itself is framed by hope. In the thoughts of all men lies hope; that possibilities offer better situations than realities. In our minds, the “what-could-be” is superior to “what-is.”
By now, almost everyone knows 