A DAY after a Quezon City court issued a verdict for a life imprisonment against top communist leader Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, Malacañang is on festive mood over what has been aptly described as a “victory for the Filipino people.”
In a press statement, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the guilty verdict on the two top communist leaders would send a strong signal for other insurgents to seriously consider turning their backs on communism.
Roque said that the recent development is in itself proof that the justice system in the country remains functional.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines, however, doesn’t see it Roque’s way. In a statement, the NDF said that the decision sentencing the couple to life imprisonment by a Quezon City court, would be another barrier to peace negotiations between the communist group and the government.
The NDFP stood pat and the charges against the couple were not supported by credible evidence and that they should be accorded protection under existing agreements as political consultants.
“The baseless and persecutory conviction of Benny Tiamzon and Wilma Austria is against the principles and the democratic rights guaranteed by any liberal-democratic constitution and international law on human rights and humanitarian conduct,” the group said.
“This latest persecutory conviction of the Tiamzons not only mocks all the foregoing principles, standards and agreements but also tightens the monkey wrench on the resolution of the ongoing armed conflict,” the NDFP added.
The Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 216 found the Tiamzons, who are believed to be top officials of the Communist Party of the Philippines, guilty of kidnapping and serious illegal detention and sentenced them to reclusion perpetua or up to 40 years of imprisonment.
The Tiamzons were also ordered to pay complainant Lieutenant Abraham Claro Casis P75,000 as moral damages; P75,000 as civil indemnity; and P75,000 as exemplary damages.
The cases stemmed from a 1988 case where four soldiers were held captive by the communist group for about two months. Charges were filed in court in 1990, but the Tiamzons were arrested and arraigned only in 2014.
They were convicted on the basis of the testimony of Casis, one of the four soldiers allegedly kidnapped and detained by members of the New People’s Army in Quezon province for 75 days.
The NDFP, however, questioned the credibility of the lone testimony of the prosecution witness, whom it said had “unbelievable magical throwback powers, can vividly remember minute details, names, faces, places and events that happened in 1988 or a good three decades ago in a case long archived and dismissed against many other accused but just recently politically excavated.”
“Another is the sweeping and conclusory inferences of conspiracy by mere alleged presence. Still another is the preconceived out-of-court autosuggestion on identification of the Tiamzons who were already then in custody at the time of trial and prominently exposed in public,” it added.