Paco Larrañaga Case Summary
The Philippines has no jury system, so Paco's fate rested in the hands of the judge in the case, Martin Ocampo, who made the defense team's work difficult, even jailing them for protesting his decision to throw out expert testimony questioning the identification of Marijoy Chiong's body.
When Paco's fellow students and instructors took the stand to verify his alibi, the judge cut short their testimony, declaring that there were "too many" witnesses. Paco was never allowed to take the stand.
July 16, 1997 was a typical day for Give Up Tomorrow's subject, Paco Larrañaga. He attended culinary classes and then enjoyed the nightlife in Manila with his classmates. The next morning he was back at school for a day of exams. Three hundred miles away on the island of Cebu, parents Dionisio and Thelma Chiong were filing missing-persons reports. Their daughters, Marijoy, 21, and Jacqueline, 23, had disappeared while waiting for their father to give them a ride home from work. The sisters would never be seen alive again. A battered, blindfolded and handcuffed body was soon discovered and identified as Marijoy. Jacqueline was never found.
Two months later, Paco's sister, Mimi, received a call from her frightened brother saying that men in civilian clothes were arresting him for the kidnap, rape and murder of both Chiong sisters. Six other boys in Cebu were also arrested. Although some of the boys' names were on a list of juvenile delinquents because of a previous altercation, there was no evidence linking them to the crime.
The Chiong family is Chinese-Filipino. Paco is part of a prominent mestizo political clan that includes a former president. Beefy and tough, with a past of petty offenses, he neatly fits the role of privileged thug"
Initially, Paco's family, devout Catholics like many Filipinos, discussed his leaving the country. But they decided he would stay and clear his name. "We didn't think it would go beyond preliminary investigation because we had...more than 35 witnesses...that said this boy was nowhere near Cebu on July 16," said Mimi.
As the media began painting sensational portraits of the accused boys as drug addicts, Thelma Chiong, distraught mother of the victims, became a sensation herself. She claimed Paco had been dating and menacing Marijoy, an allegation he and his sister, Mimi, strenuously denied. Mimi began to suspect that the Chiongs were hiding something. She was right.
It turned out that Dionisio Chiong had worked at a trucking company owned by an alleged drug lord. At the time of his daughters' disappearance, Dionisio had been scheduled to testify against the drug lord at a congressional hearing, but then he abruptly changed his mind. Could the murders have been ordered to ensure Dionisio's silence? It was later discovered that the plainclothes police who arrested Paco were the alleged drug kingpin's bodyguards and that the police superintendent was a close friend.
The story became stranger still. While Paco and the six co-defendants languished in prison, Thelma Chiong was appointed vice president of the Crusade Against Violence. Her sister was the personal secretary to the newly elected president, Joseph Estrada, who assigned four different agencies to tackle the investigation.
Police searched the Larrañagas' property for a link to the crime. No such link was found, but eight months later prosecutors announced they had a star witness. A young drug addicted prisoner named Davidson Rusia confessed that he was among the gang sought for kidnapping, raping and murdering the Chiong sisters. When the trial got underway, the prosecution questioned Rusia for days, while Paco's counsel was given 30 minutes for cross-examination. Thelma Chiong called Rusia "a gift from God" and even brought the alleged double murderer birthday gifts in prison. Rusia's cellmates would later claim he had been repeatedly tortured by police before confessing.
The Philippines has no jury system, so Paco's fate rested in the hands of the judge in the case, Martin Ocampo, who made the defense team's work difficult, even jailing them for protesting his decision to throw out expert testimony questioning the identification of Marijoy Chiong's body.
When Paco's fellow students and instructors took the stand to verify his alibi, the judge cut short their testimony, declaring that there were "too many" witnesses. Paco was never allowed to take the stand.
Judge Martin Ocampo, who was even seen sleeping through parts of the proceedings, took three months to write his decision. The verdict, reached two years after the crime, was devastating: Paco and his co-defendants were found guilty and received two consecutive life sentences. Under Philippine law, a guilty verdict required the death penalty, so why did the judge rule otherwise? He admitted there was insufficient proof that the corpse was Marijoy Chiong's. "You don't know the pressure I'm under," he told reporters who asked if he feared for his life. Five months later, he committed suicide.
The Chiong family was outraged that the young men had not received the death penalty, and their ally President Estrada asked the Department of Justice to change the sentence. The Larrañaga family appealed to the Supreme Court to protest the many violations of Paco's constitutional rights.
Lawyers assured the family that Paco's case was strong. On February 3, 2004, Paco's mother, like millions of others, would hear the news of the appeal on television. Her son was not only found guilty, but now was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
But in another twist, the court's new verdict awakened widespread support for the accused young men. Student witnesses joined a Catholic priest to organize an event and Paco's family sought new avenues for justice. Because his father was Spanish, Paco was also a Spanish citizen. The family appealed to Spain for help and Amnesty International led a nationwide campaign that generated huge momentum. In November 2004, activists delivered a petition with nearly 300,000 signatures to the embassy of the Philippines in Madrid.
The country's Supreme Court, led by a chief justice related to Thelma Chiong, refused to budge. In a final effort, Paco's lawyers submitted his case to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which called for his release. The Spanish government asked Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, who had replaced President Estrada following his removal on corruption charges, to grant Paco clemency. She vowed that Paco's life would be saved and, astonishingly, abolished the nation's death penalty in June 2006. The two countries agreed that Paco would be transferred to Spain to serve the remainder of his life sentence. Thelma Chiong tried--but failed--to prevent the transfer.
Paco and his family hoped that his transfer to Spain would set him off on a path to freedom, but the Spanish prison review board would only recommend Paco for parole if he would admit his guilt. More than two years after his transfer to Spain and 15 years after his arrest, Paco remains in prison but now benefits from an additional privilege of the Spanish penal system: Due to time already served, he is granted occasional therapeutic leaves (a few days every month) at the prison board's discretion, which means he receives permission to leave during daytime hours to study and work. The Republic of the Philippines retains jurisdiction over the case.
Caption: The co-accused at the trial
Credit: Alex Badayos
The Philippines
Location:
The Republic of the Philippines is a chain of 7,107 islands in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, covering an area of 115,830 square miles in Southeast Asia. The country is divided into three areas: Luzon to the north, Visayas in the center and Mindanao to the south. Manila, the capital city where Paco attended culinary school, is located in Luzon. Cebu, the home of the Larrañaga and Chiong families, is located in central Visayas. The archipelago was formed by volcanic activity, and is mostly mountainous with areas of coastal lowlands. With 20 active volcanoes, the Philippines is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and is thus prone to seismic activity. The country's tropical climate also makes it susceptible to typhoons.
Population:
The Philippines has a population of 98 million (2012 estimate). More than 150 native languages and dialects are spoken in the Philippines, and there are four principal languages: Cebuano, spoken in Visayas; Tagalog, spoken around Manila; Ilocano, spoken in northern Luzon; and Maranao, spoken in Mindanao. To establish national unity, the government promotes the use of Filipino, based on Tagalog, as the national language, and it is taught all over the country. English is also an official language of the country, and many speak it as a second language. The Philippines has one of the highest literacy rates of developing countries, with over 93 percent of the population over 10 years of age able to read. The gender gap is significantly close with regard to health and education.
Due to over 400 years of Spanish and American rule, more than 90 percent of the population is Christian. A small Muslim population also exists, around 4.6 percent, concentrated in central and western Mindanao. Some smaller forest tribes still live in the more remote areas of Mindanao.
With a gross domestic product per capita of $2,370 in 2011, economic growth in the Philippines has averaged 5 percent over the past year, with a 7.6 percent growth rate in 2010, the highest in 20 years. Since the global financial crisis and recession, efforts have been made to develop programs that boost infrastructure, and as a result the economy has been relatively stable and resilient.
Government:
The Philippines is a representative democracy modeled after the U.S. system of government. Under the 1987 constitution, ratified under the Corazon Aquino administration, a government was established with three branches--the executive, with a president limited to one six-year term; a bicameral legislature; and an independent judiciary. The senate consists of 24 members who serve six-year terms; half of them are elected every three years. The House of Representatives is made up of 285 members, 229 of whom represent single-member districts. Party-list representatives, or party representatives elected at large, occupy the remaining 56 seats. Representatives serve three-year terms and a maximum of three consecutive terms. Under the constitution, the number of members of the House of Representatives is limited to 250. However, a 2010 Supreme Court ruling allows additional party members to sit in, if they attained the required number of votes.
Some of the major issues affecting the political climate of the country are corruption, cronyism and nepotism. There are several families at the forefront of society, and they hold a large share of both political power and economic wealth. The incumbent president, Benigno Aquino III, ran on an anti-corruption platform. He took office in June 2010. Under his administration, a Truth Commission was established. This body, led by former Supreme Court chief justice Hilario Davide, Jr., was formed to investigate charges of corruption, election rigging and human rights abuses during the previous administration under Gloria Arroyo. As of the end of 2011, Arroyo had been placed on house arrest pending trial, and the chief justice she had appointed to the Supreme Court had been impeached and found guilty of corruption. The next presidential election is slated for May 2016.
Justice:
The Supreme Court of the Philippines is composed of 15 justices, appointed by the president with recommendations from the judicial and bar council. The justices serve on the court until they reach the age of 70. Other courts include the Court of Appeals, and the Sandiganbayan ("People's Advocate"), a special court for cases involving corruption of government officials. While the Philippines has adopted a legal framework similar to that of the United States, it has not implemented a jury system. A judge hears the case and issues a ruling. In Paco Larrañaga's case, it was Judge Martin Ocampo who heard the evidence and adjourned the court for three months to write his decision.
As a result of massive case backlogs and low salaries, the legal system is fraught with inefficiencies and corruption. Only one percent of the national budget is allocated to the judiciary, so very often judges and lawyers become dependent on local politicians for resources, which allows political influence to trickle in. This culture of impunity has made the Philippines one of the most dangerous places for employees in the court system. Since 1999, at least 12 judges have been killed, and the perpetrators remain unpunished.
Caption: A scene from 'Give Up Tomorrow'
» Election Guide. "Philippines."
» Freedom House. "Philippines."
» Reuters. "Philippines' Aquino Sets Up 'Truth Commission.'" June 29, 2010.
» U.S. Department of State. "Background Note: Philippines."
» The World Bank. "GDP Per Capita."
» The World Bank. "Philippines Overview."
Cases of Wrongful Conviction
Though Give Up Tomorrow highlights only one case within the Philippine judicial system, it illuminates a larger concern over wrongful conviction, both in the Philippines and worldwide.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines released information in 2004 that cited a 71.77 percent judicial error rate in capital cases in the period from 1993 to 2004, when capital punishment was still legal, a percentage determined by the total number of death convictions that had been either reversed or pardoned. During this time, 651 of 907 convicted persons were saved from lethal injection due to wrongful conviction. In recognition of this high error rate, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on DNA evidence that allows post-conviction DNA testing without need of prior court order, although it also requires that a relevant biological sample exist and that testing be likely to result in the reversal or modification of the conviction.
Wrongful convictions are not unique to the Philippines. According to a report released by Columbia University researchers in May 2012, there have been a total of 2,061 inmate and ex-convicts exonerated of serious crimes in the United States since 1989. Worldwide, DNA evidence has assisted in clearing the names of hundreds of wrongfully-convicted prisoners, many of whom were on death row or facing other serious sentences. Use of DNA technology to revisit past convictions has led to 297 exonerations in the United States alone. Organizations like the Innocence Project view this as an indicator of systemic faults in the justice system of the United States and note that there may be thousands in the system who were wrongfully convicted, at least some of them impossible to exonerate because there is no DNA evidence for their cases.
Lengthy police station stays and interrogations are just one of many reasons for wrongful convictions, which vary based on the particular case and country. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, wrongful conviction in death penalty cases was due in 45 percent of cases to eyewitness misidentification, in 17 percent to government misconduct, in 10 percent to "snitches," in 9 percent to mishandled evidence or unqualified experts, in 8 percent to false confession and in 29 percent to other causes, including hearsay and questionable circumstantial evidence. (The totals add up to more than 100 percent because in many cases there is a combination of causes at work.)
In the United States, eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 72 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases. It has been reported by many organizations studying this phenomenon that race may play a role, as 40 percent of identifications are cross-racial and some studies have shown that it may be more difficult for people to identify someone of a race that is not their own.
Caption: A scene from Give Up Tomorrow
Credit: Alex Badayos
» Asia Times Online. "Wrongful Conviction Puts Spotlight on Japanese Justice."
» Innocence Project. "The Causes of Wrongful Conviction."
» Innocence Project. "Eyewitness Identification Reform."
» Innocence Project. "Facts on Post-conviction DNA Exonerations."
» The Week. "25 Years of Wrongful Convictions: By the Numbers."
Prisoner Transfer Treaties
As a dual citizen of the Philippines and Spain, Paco Larrañaga was moved to a Spanish prison under what is known as the RP-Spain Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement (TSPA). Signed on May 18, 2007 and approved by the senates of both countries, this treaty allows foreign prisoners to be sent to their countries of nationality to serve out the rest of their sentences.
As of 2011, the Philippine government had established prisoner transfer agreements with five different nations--China, Canada, Cuba, Thailand and Spain. Though Paco's case is an exception, the origin of prisoner transfer treaties is largely humanitarian--they are typically issued to protect nationals who are incarcerated abroad under abusive and inhumane conditions. The sentencing country (in Paco's case the Philippines) retains sole power over whether or not the convicted person will be granted amnesty or pardon, but the treaty is dependent on the cooperation of partner nations and encourages cordial international relations. In this case, Spain has the option to ask the Philippines for clemency for Paco.
The RP-Spain TSPA permits transfers to be carried out only if certain criteria are met. The sentenced person must be a national of the state to which he or she is being transferred; the committed offense must be criminally punishable both in the country of offense and the country of nationality; the sentence must be final and without other legal recourse; and the sentenced person must have consented to the transfer, satisfied any payment of fines and have at least one year left to serve. In Paco Larrañaga's case, the Chiong family reportedly received 750,000 Philippine pesos in civil damages from the Larrañaga family (an amount equivalent to approximately $18,000 in 2012). Once a sentenced person or either partner nation confirms that all of these criteria apply, a transfer request may be submitted to the central authority of the state holding the individual.
Prisoner transfer agreements also exist in Australia, Japan, the Americas and several European countries. This type of agreement made national headlines in the United States when three British businessmen (the so-called "NatWest Three") pled guilty to fraud during the 2007 Enron case and were transferred to the United Kingdom prison system after serving only six months of a 37-month sentence.
Records kept by the U.S. International Prison Transfer Unit (the branch of the U.S. Department of Justice that presides over prison transfer agreements involving the United States) reveal that 595 foreign nationals were sent back to their home countries from United States prisons between 2008 and 2010 and 163 Americans returned from prisons abroad in that same time period.
Caption: A scene from 'Give Up Tomorrow'
» abs-cbnNEWS.com. "Larrañaga Turned Over to Spain."
» Council of Europe. "Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons."
» Lee-Brago, Pia. "DFA Chief Defends RP-Spain Prison Transfer Treaty." The Philippine Star, September 12, 2009.
Media Responsibility in the Philippines
The media's involvement in the Chiong case seemed unjust and biased to many observers. From the recorded re-enactment that demonized the seven young men on trial to news broadcasts that referred to Paco Larrañaga by various derogatory names, media responsibility became a point of contention for Larrañaga's domestic and international supporters.
In 2011, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism issued a proposal for a publication that would illustrate the Philippine media's sensational reporting on rape and would recommend ethical guidelines for journalists. The proposed publication would focus on the Chiong rape case, specifically, and would cite articles published in the media outlets that covered the case, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin, Manila Times and the tabloids Bulgar, Tempo and Abante.
In a July 2012 opinion piece on the GMA News website, blogger and essayist Katrina Stuart Santiago revisited the media's involvement in the Chiong case. She writes that "the media saw the bad boy stereotype and sold it to us as the truth behind, if not the premise of, this story of crime. Certainly this was the state of media in 1997, in a grand display of gross sensationalism and absolutely biased reportage that I'm sure any media personality would want to deny."
To date, much of the attention paid to media responsibility in the Philippines has focused on journalists charged with libel against politicians. For example, in 2005, five journalists in Cebu were charged for publishing stories about a mayor's alleged involvement in a bank robbery of nearly 100 million pesos. In 2012, a forum was organized by the Cebu Citizens-Press Council in recognition of World Press Freedom Day. Gabriel T. Ingles, associate justice at the Philippine Court of Appeals, supported Justice Vicente Mendoza's idea of distinguishing between political and private libel.
In June 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists ranked the Philippines third in its impunity index, which calculates unsolved media killings as a percentage of each country's population. In a 2005 report on a study of freedom of expression and the media in the Philippines and six other Asian countries, Article 19, an international human rights organization that defends and promotes freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide, pointed to "the failure of the Philippine mass media to provide citizens with balanced and objective information they need on matters such as their own rights."
Caption: A trial scene from Give Up Tomorrow
Credit: Alex Badayos
» Article 19. "Freedom of Expression and the Media in the Philippines."
» Center for Media Freedom & Responsibility. "Cebu Journalists Face Libel Suit."
» GMA News. "The Refusal to Give Up Today."
» Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. "Reporting on Rape."
» Solidarity Philippines Australia Network. "Statement on Press Freedom in the Philippines."
» SunStar Cebu. "Forum Discusses Libel in Media."