ShareThisMANILA — The camp of Hubert Webb, one of the convicts in the Vizconde massacre case, filed on Thursday before the Supreme Court (SC) an urgent motion seeking the dismissal of the criminal charges filed against him.
At the same time, Webb, son of former Senator Freddie Webb, also asked the SC to release him from the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) where he has been incarcerated for 15 years already.
Freddie Webb
In his appeal, Webb argued that there is no reason for him to remain imprisoned at the NBP since the Court has admitted that some vital pieces of evidence such as semen specimen are missing.
The defense believes that if there is no strong evidence to implicate Webb in the Vizconde massacre case, the State may violate the human rights of the accused.
In a resolution dated Oct. 19, 2010 and released to the media on Wednesday, the SC said that it will proceed with resolving the case since the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) can no longer perform a DNA analysis on the specimen taken from victim Carmela Vizconde.
DNA (dioxyribonucleic acid) consists of the building blocks of human body and can be obtained through blood samples or focal swab.
Carmela, her mother Estrellita and 16-year-old sister Jennifer were killed in their Parañaque home on June 29, 1991.
Witness Jessica Alfaro claimed that Hubert Webb, son of former Senator Freddie Webb, raped Carmela before she was killed.
The SC held that the NBI could no longer produce the semen specimen or vaginal smears taken from Carmela’s body. Thus, the Court will decide based on the existing evidence and other records presented to it.
“The DNA analysis ordered by this Court… can no longer be done. The Court may now proceed to resolve the issues raised in the petition/appeal on the basis of existing evidence which may have been formally offered by the parties and/or made part of the records,” the SC said.
The latest SC resolution reversed its earlier resolution issued on April 20, 2010 granting Hubert Webb’s request for a DNA test on a specimen taken from Carmela.
The Vizconde family appealed the said resolution, saying that a DNA test may lead to Webb’s acquittal.
Webb was among the nine suspects whom the Paranaque City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 274 convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on Jan. 6, 2000.
The Court of Appeals (CA) upheld the sentence on Dec. 15, 2005 through a division then composed of Associate Justices Rodrigo Cosico, Regalado Maambong and Lucenito Tagle.
Both Cosico and Maambong have retired and Tagle is now a Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner.
Webb elevated the case before the SC, asking for its review as well as the reversal of their conviction.