MANILA, Philippines - The adjective grisly (or ghastly, terrifying, or horrible), if applied to means of committing murder, is seldom seen except in horror movies where characters use chainsaws, axes, spears, or boiling asphalt to kill innocent victims.
Shallow grave
Last week in Maguindanao witnesses led law enforcers to a grassy field where they dug up a shallow grave. Human skeletons and bones were recovered. Death or murder, with the use of a chainsaw, was noted. What's the purpose of using a terrifying instrument to kill a man or woman?
Horrible message
This is intended to send a message to future victims that the perpetrators enjoyed absolute immunity to kill or dismember. Who gave them this barbaric immunity from murder or torture? They assumed that killing a perceived enemy won't get the usual attention from the law. The killers further assumed that officialdom in Manila wouldn't mind.
Slim chance
Can witnesses to the chainsaw murder of one or five persons summon the guts to testify in court? If witnesses are fully protected and presented within a few weeks from discovery, there's a chance of winning a conviction.
But the criminal justice system in this country is known to all to be slow and may drag for years with unpredictable result or lead to a simple miscarriage justice like acquittal.
The long process
The generals, their wives, and in-laws charged before the Senate with getting sums bigger than a lotto prize of P700 M won't get immediate sanctions, say within 10 years from now. The Senate report on the subject, dealing with hundreds of documents, may not reach the prosecutors within a few weeks. In the hands of prosecutors, the evaluation/verification may take months, subject to more and more MRs (motions for reconsideration).
Countless MRs
The longest process is the trial proper that can last for years, maybe 10 to 15 years, subject to MRs and layers of appeal up to the Supreme Court.
The culprits (or scoundrels) have calculated or projected the route to final conviction or service of sentence. They are aware of sentences served after 15 years from filing of the charge.
Too late to jail?
If the accused generals are now in their late 60s or early 70s, they may start serving the penalty at age 75 or 85 - time enough to claim that serious illness has crippled them like Alzheimer disease or a succession of strokes that can prevent them from seeing the jail house.
Most medical specialists and veteran lawyers believe the state will not drag to jail convicts with Alzheimer (named after A. Alzheimer, 1865 to 1915, who first described it as a progressive, irreversible disease characterized by degeneration of the brain cells and commonly leading to severe dementia). Who is the warden who wants to feed a convict with Alzheimer?
'I don't know'
Some generals who testified answered the senators with: 1) "I can't remember," 2) "I don't know," 3) "My answer will incriminate me," or 4) "I did not receive the money as charged."
Medical specialists on the subject can't tell if these answers betray or indicate symptoms leading to severe dementia.
One acerbic café critic told his barkada that the government should be thankful that Rabusa made no reference whatsoever to a second or back-alley family of any of the generals.
The barkada all agreed that the generals' girlfriends cannot be asked by the Senate to testify and thus create a scandal of unprecedented form like, "My share of his gift reached me in trickles and not enough to pay..."
Zsa Zsa's lament
There's one story from the actress Zsa Zsa Gabor who told it to a Hollywood gossip columnist. Gabor was then married to Conrad Hilton (of Hilton Hotels). Her husband had a favorite charity managed by a Catholic foundation. In his will he left all to charity and only a few thousand dollars to Zsa Zsa.
After Hilton's death, Zsa Zsa gathered his friends and tearfully told them about the will: "I want to die now! I want to know if Hilton is really in heaven! (Comments are welcome at roming@pefianco.com)
