webb et al SC acquittal – was a massive PR effort launched? did they have prior knowledge on decision?

some observations on this whole thing.

• a few weeks before the SC decision on the vizconde massacre acquitting webb et al, did you notice all of a sudden there was news articles and tv interviews were in media from the webbs?
• this case has been in the courts and i guess at the SC for a very long time and nothing has happened, then all of a sudden we got a barage of news bits on the case after 10 to 15 years.
• when things got heated up in the press, sometime within that time frame, lauro vizconde came out to say corruption and collusion has occurred among the SC justices on the case and that a decision was imminent. if i remember it right,  lauro said there is one SC justice who is spearheading the effort of convincing the other justices to acquit.
• then even closer to the decision date of the SC,  facebook accounts were set up detailing the defence of webb. this one centered on  webb’s alibi that he was in the US when the crime was committed.
• prior to this, the defence’s legal team went to the SC to ask that a DNA test be conducted on the semen sample obtained from carmela vizconde. it was established that carmela was raped before she was killed.
• only to find out weeks after the semen sample has been lost, interestingly enough between the NBI and the local courts.

those were the events that transpired and now the SC released it’s decision on the case. some more observations:

• both defence and prosecution were surprised on the release of the decision, they did not expect it this soon.
• the SC decision to acquit webb et all was mostly centered on two things – the  credibility of the star witness, jessica alfaro which the majority did not believe and the acceptance of the alibi of the defence.

some observation:

• isn’t it too much of a coincidence that  the facebook accounts of webb made a big deal of the alibi and that the SC decision to a large part accepted this alibi?

of course you can say conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen these days. i too like to watch oliver stone movies. but here is the thing –  if you look at the whole thing, it does look like an excellent, well thought out , brilliant PR effort.  the event pieces seem to fall precisely on their proper places that read like someone put together a PR plan behind the whole thing and executed it flawlessly. it also shows brilliant strategic thinking. this is a brilliant and classic PR effort.

we invite PR, advertising and marketing students to look into this matter more closely and study it. there is a lot to be learned and admired behind this effort (if it is a planned effort).  if there are students out there reading this blog and would like to take this up as a class project or thesis, i will offer my services as advisor.

to start off the students, i would suggest the first thing you do is put together an exhaustive timeline on these media events from start to finish.

one last thing we left out – IF this was a planned PR effort, this also means one thing – the group who launched the PR effort knew in advance what the SC decision will be. lauro could be right.

SC : webb et al are innocent – who are the killers? jail those who unjustly jailed the innocent!

MANILA, Philippines – The story was in the crime and the carnage—and in the names. On the morning of June 30, 1991, a mother and her two daughters were found slaughtered in their own home. Estrellita Vizconde, 47, sustained 13 stab wounds; Carmela, 18, had 17 wounds and had been raped before she was killed; and Jennifer, 7, had 19 wounds.

source: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20081109-171119/The-Vizconde-Case

the supreme court handed down its decision on the vizconde massacre just this afternoon – those accused, hubert webb, antonio lejano, miguel rodriguez, pike fernandez, peter estrada, michael gatchalian and gerardo

hubert webb during trial

biong are acquitted of the crime of killing lauro vizconde’s family. the accused have been in jail for 15 years, the murders that were committed in 1991.

it is hard for anyone to imagine the kind of suffering the accused and their families needed to endure for their loved ones to be in jail for such a long time only to find out 15 years after they were not guilty of the crime. certainly, there is celebration for all of them. there has been pain for 15 years – they have  always claimed they were innocent. to be in jail for that long a time, in fact even for a single day when you know you are not

webb on release some 15 years after

guilty is difficult to bear. their release from jail for sure is reason for joy.

from the supreme court decision:

On June 30, 1991 Estrellita Vizconde and her daughters Carmela, nineteen years old, and Jennifer, seven, were brutally slain at their home in Parañaque City.  Following an intense investigation, the police arrested a group of suspects, some of whom gave detailed confessions.  But the trial court smelled a frame-up and eventually ordered them discharged.Thus, the identities of the real perpetrators remained a mystery especially to the public whose interests were aroused by the gripping details of what everybody referred to as the Vizconde massacre.

Four years later in 1995, the National Bureau of Investigation or NBI announced that it had solved the crime.  It presented star-witness Jessica M. Alfaro, one of its informers, who claimed that she witnessed the crime.  She pointed to accused Hubert Jeffrey P. Webb,Antonio “Tony Boy” Lejano, Artemio “Dong” Ventura, Michael A. Gatchalian, Hospicio“Pyke” Fernandez, Peter Estrada, Miguel “Ging” Rodriguez, and Joey Filart as the culprits.She also tagged accused police officer, Gerardo Biong, as an accessory after the fact.  Relying primarily on Alfaro’s testimony, on August 10, 1995 the public prosecutors filed an information for rape with homicide against Webb,

et al

.

but is there really joy?

with this decision and the release of the accused from jail, that can only mean lauro vizconde , the father and husband of  those murdered suffered the pain of the loss of his family a second time. to him, this is a second massacre of his family.

with his wife and 2 daughters killed and raped, the only relief  he got from the courts was the imprisonment of the accused.

certainly the women in his family are gone forever, the only consolation he got was the jail term the  killers were serving. with their release, the only consolation he got was taken away from him. there is no joy in that.

perhaps the biggest pain of them all and this is not just for lauro vizconde but for the whole justice system – the killers are still free. if we believe the supreme court that those they freed should be set free, the real killers then are still out there.

what will the government do about that?

the other part of this is the fact that innocent people were jailed, then there are those who committed gross errors in their work as police. they should also be held liable for what they have done to these supposed innocent people.

will the government do something about that?

Supreme Court decision, read it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/45248033/Supreme-Court-decision-on-Webb-et-al-re-Vizconde-Massacre