Focus: Justice eludes December 30 bombing victims

December 30, 2000, will forever remain a dark day in the memory of senior police officer Jefferson Acusin as well as the families of the 22 people who died that day and for the more than 100 who were wounded.

On that fateful Saturday, a national holiday to honour the country's national hero, Jose Rizal, almost simultaneous explosions rocked Manila, targeting a coach of the Light Rail Transit (LRT), a passenger bus, and a cargo warehouse at the international airport.

A fifth explosive device was found in suburban Makati City but went off while experts were trying to defuse it, killing a member of the police bomb disposal unit.

"We were looking forward to having dinner together for the New Year," Acusin told Gulf News as he held the picture of his six-year-old daughter, Kryselle. Acusin is a member of the Manila police mobile unit, a detachment that ironically used to check on LRT passengers to see if they are carrying bombs or deadly weapons.

"Until now I can't understand why weeks before the blast, the LRT management had to pull us out from our job checking passengers," he said as he fought back tears.

Kryselle's pretty face was blown off and both her legs were severed as she bore the full impact of the explosion inside the LRT. The young girl was supposed to go on vacation to Manila from Santa Rosa town in Laguna where she studies in a Catholic school.

Her uncle, Sixto Cruz, who was 30 then and accompanying her on the trip, had to have his left leg amputated due to wounds inflicted by the blast.

The scene at the LRT was so gory that television news anchormen had to repeatedly apologise for the bloody scenes that were flashed on screen.

A promising civil engineer, Cruz spent a full year of post-traumatic stress therapy after the blast but never fully recovered. "No employer would take him after what he had endured," Acusin said.

With shattered dreams and lost hopes, dozens of bombing victims in the Philippines have had to live with the horrors of their ordeal and, worse, have had to deal with a slow justice system and a marginally competent security force more concerned with drawing more "anti-terrorism" funds than making do with what they have under the circumstances.

"I myself am a policeman, yet I seem to be powerless in following up the case," Acusin said. "What about the other bomb victims who do not even have the money to pay for their transport fare to show up in court."

He pointed out that it would have been a big help if other blast victims could band together to push the government to take firmer action.

"Unlike Chinese-Filipino kidnap victims who can get an audience with the president, we are nothing. Some do not even have the money to buy newspapers to learn the latest about the case," he lamented.

Another police officer, Makati City police chief Jovito Gutierrez lost a relative in another blast that same day.

Senior police officer Roberto Gutierrez of the Makati police explosive and ordnance division and a younger brother of the Makati police chief died while a bomb he was defusing exploded.

Of the dozens or so bombing incidents in the Philippines, almost all of the victims come from the lowest strata of the society - daily wage earners for the most part, if they have any job at all.

"Society has been unjust to them and they still get more injustice," noted Acusin, a policeman for 16 years.

Several suspects in connection with the Rizal Day bombing were rounded up by the military and police, including 13 Muslims who were picked up from a community in northern Manila. None of those rounded up turned out to be involved in the bombings.

The case has been blamed on "terrorists" but the fact that the series explosions occurred at a time when the government was besieged by a massive political upheaval made it more difficult for investigators to determine the real perpetrators and their motives.

Twenty-six days after the bombings, on January 25, 2001, then president Joseph Estrada resigned amidst an uprising that accused him of corruption.

The police believed they had scored a breakthrough in the case last April, after Indonesian Fathur Rohman Al Ghozi admitted his underground organisation, Jemaah Islamiyah, had funded the Rizal Day bombings supposedly as part of a plan to "destabilise" the Estrada government.

However, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) was following a different lead. In a case it filed before branch 52 of the Manila regional trial court (MRTC) early this year it named several suspects, including a supposed army colonel and several former or active members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as respondents. Of the eight listed in the charge-sheet, none has been captured by the police despite an arrest warrant issued by the court.

"The last time I heard, the state prosecutors told me that they are awaiting a decision from the court on sentencing the suspects in absentia. Possibly a life in prison sentence they say," Acusin stated.

A check by Gulf News with branch 52 of the MRTC, however, said the case seems stalled possibly because of the development concerning Al Ghozi's admission, a court official said.

A law enforcer himself, Acusin said he is confused by the way the case is going.

"I am not counting on getting a quick resolution on the case soon," he revealed. "I am leaving it to God and I suppose this is what the other victims and victims' families are also feeling."