Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer
“THE CRUELTY inflicted was too much and could only come from persons-tumed-beasts.”
Thus did the Supreme Court yesterday affirm the death penalty meted out to two men convicted of the gruesome rape- slay of 7-year-old Angel Alquiza in August 1994 in Tondo, Manila.
Henry Lagarto and Ernesto Cordero had been sentenced to reclusion perpetual or 40 years
imprisonment, by Manila regional trial court judge Lorenzo Veneracion on Jan. 31, 1995.
The judge said it was against his personal and religious beliefs to impose the death sentence which should have been the correct penalty in such a case.
A third suspect, Abundio Lagunday, was killed by police while allegedly trying to escape before the case went to trial.
The high court, acting on a motion filed by the Office of the Solicitor General, ordered Veneracion to impose the “correct penalty” of death, subject to automatic review.
On May 22, 1996, Veneracion was forced to mete out the death penalty on the two surviving suspects.
Yesterday, the high court affirmed the death sentence with the modification that Lagarto and Cordero pay the relatives of the victim P352,000 in damages and indemnity.
“Angel was a seven-year-old child. Her captors and tormentors were grown-up men. The autopsy report listed her injuries: numerous hematomas, incised wounds, fractures, lacerations and stab wounds,” the high court said in the 45-page decision.
The two were convicted mainly on the eye-witness account of a deaf and slightly retarded 50-year-old laundrywoman who saw the beastly-acts done to Alquiza while peeping through a hole in the wall of a warehouse on Kagitingan St. in Tondo.
BY DONNA S. CUETO
