By HOMER TEODORO
Central Luzon TV and VERA Files
TARLAC CITY—Six years after, the murder case of Hacienda Luisita labor leader Ricardo Ramos is expected to soon come to a close.
The regional trial court here is scheduled to hand down on Nov. 16, 2011 its decision on the charge against Sgt. Roderick “Joshua” de la Cruz of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division.
Witnesses had said De la Cruz was one of two military men they saw asking about Ramos, then a barangay captain and president of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union, a few hours before the labor leader was killed on Oct. 25, 2005 inside his favorite nipa hut near his house in Barangay Mapalacsiao, one of the 10 barangays inside Hacienda Luisita, a sugarcane plantation owned by the family of President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III.
Ramos was one of those who led the strike in November 2004 staged by 5,000 hacienda workers and farmers, considered the bloodiest in the whole of Central Luzon. Seven people were killed and hundreds were injured, including Ramos who was wounded in the head during the violent dispersal of the strikers.
Ramos was one of the six labor leaders and supporters killed in the aftermath of the November 2004 strike.
The prosecution finished presenting its witnesses in the murder case against De la Cruz last Sept. 26.
De la Cruz’s counsel, Donnabel C. Tenorio, said in a recent interview she will file a demurrer on Nov. 16 and petition the court to dismiss the case, citing the failure of prosecution witnesses to positively identify the sergeant as the gunman.
She said she had hoped that presiding Judge Cesar Aganon would hand down his judgment during the hearing on Sept. 26, but Prosecutor Noel Adion, who was among those representing Ramos, urged the court to give him time to study the facts of the case.
Aganon ordered the prosecution during the Oct. 3 hearing to submit all the expenses the Ramos family had incurred for the labor leader’s wake and burial.
Ramos’ widow, Lily, said she is ready for any decision the court may reach, even as she acknowledged that she could have done more for the case if only she had the resources. Word has reached the family that the case might be dismissed.
“It’s okay with us whatever verdict the judge will hand down on our case. It’s been long already, and we cannot prolong it anymore,” she said. “I also pity the children of the accused because they are also suffering like my three children.”
Shortly after the killing, the Department of Justice provided lawyers for Mrs. Ramos. But one of the lawyers pulled out of the case, explaining to her that “may mgaanak din ako (I have children too).” Mrs. Ramos interpreted this to mean somebody was threatening her counsel.
Following his pullout, the Tarlac City Prosecutor’s Office took over the case.
City Prosecutor Hermo Manglicmot lamented that hearings on the murder case kept being postponed chiefly for two reasons: new judges were assigned the case, and prosecution witnesses would not appear.
He said the trial came to a halt when presiding judge Bitty Biliran retired on March 19, 2009 and his successor, Judge Domingo San Jose, retired on Dec. 19, 2009. Trial resumed only in September 2010 when the case was assigned to Aganon.
Of the 30 hearings set, nine hearings were postponed because witnesses did not attend the hearings, eight because the judge took a leave of absence, two on the request of the defense, one on the request of both the prosecution and defense, and one on the motion of the prosecution, according to the city prosecutor.
Manglicmot said government prosecutors sought postponement of the March 26, 2010 hearing because they needed to attend an important seminar.
“In fairness to (the DOJ lawyer who pulled out), whenever there is a hearing, he cannot present witnesses because the witnesses do not attend the hearings,” he said of the problem the Justice Department lawyer encountered even when the latter was still prosecuting the case.
Mrs. Ramos said gathering the witnesses and ferrying them to court entailed a lot of sacrifice on her part.
She had to go to them one by one at night to remind them of the hearing dates. On the day of the hearing, she would hire a jeepney for their transport.
After each hearing, she would give each witness 25 kilos of rice and some cash to thank them for giving up their day’s work and wages.
“I have to sacrifice whatever money my family would send us from Palawan. The amount was intended for my three children, but I was forced to divert it for the expenses the case incurred,” the widow said.
There were at first a dozen witnesses, including herself and her mother -in-law Adelaida, who would religiously go to court, but most of the witnesses later stopped showing up largely because pressures from friends and relatives, she said.
On Oct. 15, 2008, the prosecution presented its first witness, Jesus Datu, who was supposed to identify the gunman in court, but he did not attend the subsequent hearings on Nov. 26, and Dec. 9, 2008 and Feb. 19, 2009. Datu had gotten sick, and his relatives advised him not to testify anymore.
His nonappearance prompted the defense to move for De la Cruz’s acquittal was on March 19, 2009, citing the lack of witnesses.
The prosecution on Oct. 1, 2009 presented its second witness, George Gatus, who was set to affirm his affidavit that De la Cruz, alias Joshua, was the one who went to him “looking for Kapitan Ric Ramos” a few hours before the murder. Gatus did not appear in the next hearing scheduled on Nov. 19, 2009.
When Aganon took over as presiding judge, he scheduled two hearings in the same month—on July 9 and July 23, 2010— in which Mrs. Ramos was the witness.
“This is a very rare situation. This is what I was telling you that if there is only a judge, tuloy tuloy ang pagdinig sa kaso (hearing of the case will proceed smoothly),” Manglicmot said.
He said some of the witnesses had sent feelers that they wanted to avail themselves of the Witness Protection Program, but nothing came out of these. He said he did not know why.
Ramos’ case reached the prosecutor’s office on Nov. 11, 2005. Prosecutors filed the case in court on June 6, 2006. De la Cruz was arrested on March 21, 2008 by the National Bureau of Investigation.
Aganon, who is an OIC-judge of the regional trial court (Branch No. 65) trying the murder case, is scheduled to be replaced. If a decision is not handed down soon, Tenorio expressed fears the case would drag on, prolonging her client’s detention at the Tarlac Provincial Jail.