Family of slain judge seeks justice

Crying out for justice, the widow of a slain Batangas judge called yesterday for reforms in the judiciary to shield judges from avenging convicts.

Judge Voltaire Antonio Rosales of the Regional Trial Court of Tanauan, Batangas was laid to rest at Heritage Memorial Park at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig yesterday afternoon.

Interviewed before the funeral march, lawyer Filomena Legaspi-Rosales, widow of the 48-year-old judge, said the country could adopt the American jury system so convicts could not pinpoint who had sent them to jail.

"There should be security for the judges. Why not the jury system?" she asked.

"By doing so, the respondents in the case would not know who is responsible for their conviction, and would not be able to extract vengeance on one person only," Rosales said.

She said she is angry at the government for "mistreating people who have been doing their jobs."

"Somehow there’s something wrong with the fiber of morality in our country," she said.

Holding back tears, Rosales said the government was more concerned with corrupt officials rather than people who die in the line of duty.

"I ask for commitment from the judiciary, a commitment that I will be the last to suffer this fate," she said.

She said her husband had been offered bribes so he would rule favorably on cases, but that he had rejected them all.

"Someone was offering P500,000 to P1 million, but he just laughed it off," she said.

"I know he won’t bite with the offers, basta nakakapag-aral at nabibigyan niya ng magandang edukasyon ang dalawa niyang anak, kuntento na siya doon (he’s satisfied as long he is able to give his children a decent education)."

Rosales said judges must not be easy prey for convicted criminals who are out to get even with the person who had sent them to jail.

"I told the Chief Justice that I do not only want justice for my husband, but I want reforms for the judiciary," she said.

Alarmed by the killing of Rosales, President Arroyo has ordered police to speed up investigations on the murder of six other judges, all of which have remained unsolved.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the murder of Rosales last June 10 has brought to seven the number of judges killed in the line of duty since 1999.

"The President said the criminal justice system must be determined to mete out justice for its own worthy agents so that people will be beholden to the law," he said.

Rosales said the mastermind of her husband’s killing is already in jail, insinuating that he was killed because of a drug case he had decided in which the ring leader was sent to jail.

"Are prisoners allowed to have a cellphone?" she asked.

She said most of the 14 death sentences handed down by her husband were on drug cases.

"In all logic, you do not take revenge for rape," she said.

Rosales said authorities have made little progress in arresting those behind the shooting to death of her husband.

"I am a practicing lawyer, I don’t believe in long-term cases."

She said her husband was on his way home from court when the killer shot him as he was driving his car.

"Just before he died, he just came from the courtroom, he called me up and said, ‘Honey, I am coming home...’," she said.

"His cellphone was full of blood."

She said if she had her way, she would have wanted to extend her husband’s wake to Sunday, more than a week after his death.

"I cannot accept burying my husband, but I don’t think that my children can take it anymore," she said.

Rosales said she and her two children, Vicente Rafael, 28, and Maria Luisa Isabel, 18, decided to parade her husband’s unwashed car to remind police authorities and the public of his brutal death.

Its driver’s side window was shattered, splinters of glass were on the floor, and bloodstains on the seat cover, steering wheel and dashboard.

The car trailed the hearse that carried the judge’s body to Fort Bonifacio.

Rosales and her children, along with their friends, wore black armbands and pinned black ribbons on their chests.

Banners declaring "Justice for Judge Butch Rosales" were placed on the hood of vehicles joining the procession.

Bunye identified the six other murdered judges as:

• Executive Judge Paterno Tiamson of the regional trial court of Binangonan, Rizal — stabbed to death on Feb. 21, 2004.

• Judge Gaby Uson of the regional trial court of Tayug, Pangasinan — shot to death on Sept. 27, 2002.

• Judge Eugenio Valles of the regional trial court of Nabuntulan, Compostela Valley — shot to death on Oct. 3, 2001.

• Judge Hassan Ibnohaji of the regional trial court of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro — killed on Feb. 5, 2001.

• Judge Celso Lorenzo Sr. of Borongan, Eastern Samar — shot to death on Nov. 1, 1999.

Last June 10, a lone gunman shot Rosales as he slowed down to maneuver a hump on his Mitsubishi Pajero along N. Gonzales street in Tanauan, Batangas. — With Arnell Ozaeta, Marichu Villanueva, Edu Punay