Hubert Webb is acquitted

It's a majority decision because four justices inhibited themselves. Your statement that its trial by publicity caught my attention. From the start, this was one case that everyone seemed to be passionate about. Everyone had an opinion and most were based on what they heard people say. I often heard people say "I had a friend who lived in Paranaque and he said that Webb did it." Everyone from Paranaque became experts in this case. Because of this, nobody was surprised when he was convicted - even the Webbs were ready with his jail provisions that same day. But you have to admit that he was acquitted after the Webbs went on a media blitz on their side of the story. The last few weeks I saw the case discussed on television. Finally people listened to what they were saying all along - Hubert was not here. I wonder why people did not listen at that time but are now willing to hear him now.

The SC Justices en banc decisions or votes is 7-4 for acquittal and 4 abstained or inhibited. In other words it is not a majority vote of the en banc, its a minority vote. A majority vote should be 8. Technically, the acquittal of the accused are invalid or still pre-matured according to the rule of law of our constitution. A lot of our law students and some of my friends practicing law are now having a lot of questions and some are so confused.... What is happening to our justice system? What happened to democratic way of our justice system?

actually all 6 of them I think are acquitted not just Hubert.

Yeah so sorry I misread the news and I thought it was only Hubert that was acquitted. I really feel sorry for Lauro who was either misled here or is taken off his Justice for her family. It seems that now the accused becomes the victims here because of the lack of evidence and everything. After passing through the lower courts up to the court of appeals Lauro's case was upheld to be correct and valid but then here comes the SC which overturned everything upside down and looks like Lauro here was taken off the justice that they wanted for his departed family members. The accused can live their lives freely once again and they could easily blend in with society as they are all belonging to the upper class of society. It would not be hard for them to live their lives comfortably.

Officially, Justice Carpio inhibited himself from the case. I understand that there has been a lot of talk about him lobbying for this case, but in fairness to him, no evidence has been presented to support this except the pained accusations of Vizconde. I understand his feelings, and he is merely looking out for his family. Actually romzz is right. All the accused who were tried with Hubert were acquitted. The theory of the prosecution rested on Hubert's participation, thus, they benefited from his acquittal. There are 2 accused though who never surfaced but were indicted with them.

Logically obviously it is not a total majority vote, because we have an unfairly abstained votes. Majority vote should have 8 votes for 15 members of SC Justices. My goodness! This is a very special historical celebrated case to have abstained votes. It only means our SC Justices are bias at all on their judgments and doubts to our own judicial and democratic systems. Under Article 8: Judicial Department.... Section 4 Paragraph 3.... http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/loveacec/ThePhilippineConstitution.html (English) http://www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/ang_1987_konstitusyon_ng_republi.htm#ARTIKULO%20XIII (Tagalog) I think that's the Article, because I can't really recall the actual Article they referring to. I got these information on GNN (A Destiny's cable news channel owned). Together with my brother, his classmate (both are law students at San Beda) and with us their Law Professor watched the special segment at GNN (because of the Webb and others acquittal report of the SC Spokesperson on that day). On that presentation is a debarred lawyer Atty. Alan Paguia (now a prof. in Ateneo), he explained the technicalities of SC Justices votes which is accordingly to what the Spokesperson had reported a "Majority Vote" but according Atty. Paguia is not a minority vote. Logically obviously, it is really a minority vote of all the 15 Justices members of the Supreme Court. There should be no abstained votes at all. Hence, this a very historic and a very important case to have an abstained votes. If the acquittal, won a so called majority vote so why we have abstained votes?... The answer, because, the Justices still have doubts to acquit those accused. Take note..... Just yesterday, the SC Spokesperson said "Acquittal does not mean innocence" .... (Prior to that Senator Cayetano said that also).... Why the SC stated that? Answer, to clear-up what they have said a so called Majority Votes with still doubts to acquits. So, for now it clears-up that those who have acquitted has still the burdens to prove that they are still innocents and Jessica has lied. If not?.... I don't know what will happen then after... abangan na lang ang susunod na kabanata.... God have mercy on us all. Anyway, I think Hubert Webb will get mad if he watched local tv soap operas. Because Mara Clara is still not yet ended. hehehehehehhe..

Under what article?

We may have had bad experience in this country, but there are still people out there who do their best "for us to be proud of our race". so, my opinion is that, this incident can't afford to let us down. we have more than 80 million FIlipinos and more than 20 million accross the globe, am sure one of them isn't like these criminals.

@ ritchelle: That's exactly what I told my mother when we were watching the news. Hubert et al will have this mark on them forever, and people will talk about it for the rest of their lives. I don't know what to feel about this - on one hand, if they did not commit the crime, then I pity him. But if he did, then its karma. @LK: I agree, these people are not representative of the Filipinos.

In fairness, the Supreme Court merely said that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they committed the crime. There was no declaration of innocence. If anything, this was a result of the law enforcement's ineptitude. They should be the one condemned. I agree that a parent would defend his child to the bitter end -look at Marlene Aguilar. But even if that were true, that Hubert lied to his parents and the Webbs accepted it at face value, the documents presented were just too many that I think entitled them to believe their child. I would have agreed with you totally if they did not produce evidence other than the say-so of Hubert.

How so? I am curious about the basis of people for believing or disbelieving the verdict. This issue will not die, and the decision will haunt us forever. I guess even if Hubert was acquitted, he will live with the knowledge that people don't buy his alibi. This cloud of doubt will be with him for the rest of his life.

I agree, he was publicly vilified at that time. He was branded an addict and rabble-rouser and everyone believed the story of Jessica Alfaro. People who watched the movie believed everything in the movie (I was not one of them!). Even at that time, I felt that he was going to be acquitted eventually because let's face it, his evidence was really convincing. Why would a US embassy official agree to testify if the document was not authentic? It feels like karma to me (sorry, I'm so bad today).

The SC decision did not really answer your question. What the SC is saying is that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Webb et al committed the heinous crime. Only God can truly say if he is innocent or not. In short, the prosecution is inept, so says the highest court.