Hubert slaps suit vs Jessica Alfaro over 'false testimony'

The camp of Hubert Webb filed on Friday a criminal suit against Jessica Alfaro, the so-called star witness in the massacre of three members of the Vizconde family in 1991. In a complaint-affidavit filed with the Parañaque City Prosecutor's Office, Webb said Alfaro gave false testimonies when the Vizconde massacre case was still on trial at the Parañaque Regional Trial Court Branch 274. "Jessica cannot just offer false testimony in court which sent seven men to jail and get away with it scot-free. Until now, she has not shown any sign of remorse. She should, therefore, be held fully accountable for what she did," a statement from the Ongkiko Manhit Acorda Law Office quoted Webb as saying. In 2000, the Parañaque court convicted Webb and six of his co-accused, relying heavily on Alfaro's testimony. The guilty verdict was sustained by the Court of Appeals in 2005 and 2006. But last year, te Supreme Court acquitted last year Webb and six of his co-accused because it found Alfaro's testimony against them unreliable and incredible. On Friday, Webb's lawyers said offering false testimonies is punishable under Article 180 of the Revised Penal Code. "The complaint-affidvit stated that Jessica Alfaro offered false testimony in several instances and lied several times under oath," said one of Webb's lawyers, Zenaida Ongkiko-Acorda, in the same press statement. 'Most glaring lie' Alfaro is reportedly hiding abroad since the SC handed down its decision last Dec. 14, 2010. In her statement, Acorda said that Alfaro gave "most glaring lie" when she claimed that she saw Webb rape Carmela Vizconde on June 29, 1991. Acorda added that in April 1995, Alfaro executed an affidavit admitting she did not really witness the massacre first-hand. "She also lied when she said that she knew Hubert Webb, as in fact NBI [National Bureau of Investigation agent Mark So testified that she had to be coached... before she was able to identify Hubert in court," said Acorda. SC decision Last Dec. 14, the SC acquitted Webb and six of his co-accused and ordered their immediate release from the New Bilibid Prison. The SC's 38-page decision gave a scathing criticism of Alfaro's testimony and of the Paranaque court's and Court of Appeals' rulings that lent credence to her accounts. The SC found Alfaro's testimony as "incoherent, if not inherently unbelievable," adding that Alfaro was merely an NBI agent who merely played the role that she saw the murders of Estrellita, Carmela and Jennifer Vizconde first hand. "Her story lacks sense or suffers from incoherent inconsistencies. An understanding of the nature of things and the common behavior of people will help expose a lie. And it has an abundant presence in this case," said the court's decision written by Associate Justice Roberto Abad. "She was, at the time she revealed her story, working for the NBI as an "asset,' a stool pigeon, one who earned her living by fraternizing with criminals so she could squeal on them to her NBI handlers. She had to live a life of lies to get rewards that would pay for her subsistence and vices," the SC said. In handing down its acquittal of the massacre suspects, the high court said: "It would be a serious mistake to send an innocent man to jail where such kind of doubt hangs on to one's inner being, like a piece of meat lodged immovable between teeth." "Will the Court send the accused to spend the rest of their lives in prison on the testimony of an NBI asset who proposed to her handlers that she take the role of the witness to the Vizconde massacre that she could not produce?" the SC asked. — RSJ, GMA News