Go's wounds self-inflicted, says Maguan kin

MANILA, Philippines - The sister of road rage victim Eldon Maguan claimed yesterday that the wounds, cuts, and abrasions on the head and body of convicted murderer Rolito Go were a cheap gimmick and self-inflicted.

“Mr. Go has just scratched and scraped his own body or Filipinos called it – naglaslas ng sarili — so Filipinos would take pity on him,” said Grace Maguan, adding that a majority of Filipinos doesn’t believe Go’s drama.

Maguan said that even Filipinos abroad and results of a majority of local television surveys don’t believed Go’s gimmick that he was abducted by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City last Tuesday.

“From now you see him, now you don’t; to ‘kidnap me,’ (and) now it’s ‘laslas me’ scheme,” said Maguan, who just arrived from abroad.

She described Go’s cheap gimmick as disrespectful to the justice system.

Grace said Go also escaped from the Rizal Provincial Jail in Pasig City just three days before the court handed him a 30-year prison term in 1994.

Reports showed that jail guards released him after they were paid a huge sum and the jail officials only announced that Go was missing after three days.

This time, Go surfaced and claimed that he was kidnapped when the news broke out Tuesday night that he was missing.

“It’s obvious, that’s kidnap me design,” she stressed.

She also learned that Go first visited his family in Quezon City coming from a hotel in Pasay City on Sunday and then proceeded to Batangas on Monday to visit his other businesses. 

Go was involved in the financing and construction business before he was convicted of killing Eldon Maguan, a De La Salle University engineering student, in 1991.

Go only surfaced to the police a week after the killing. He planned to hide but the incident was being played up in the newspapers.

“That’s what we call it, now you see him now you don’t. Go is more intelligent that Palos and Spiderman in bolting prison jail,” said Maguan.

Eldon’s younger brother Eliot described as a poorly written “zarzuela” the claim of Go that he was kidnapped by four men whom he claimed had posed as NBI agents.

The Maguans said they were informed by their friends at the NBP that Go frequently leaves the prison compound since last year and goes to a casino in Pasay City instead of to his doctor in a hospital in Makati City for medical checkup.

The Maguans also appealed to President Aquino and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to hold and delay the early release of the convict in June next year because “it is our belief that the law must stand firm especially when its authority has been challenged by criminals like Go’s kind.” 

“Mr. Go must not be given a free ride by the justice system whose authority he had so clearly tried to subvert and humiliate since the Ramos administration, Arroyo administration and now in the Aquino administration,” Grace said.

She said Go is only using the arguments of exaggerated poor health, doubtful reform and insincere remorse for the authorities to extend merciful consideration to his plea for pardon.

Grace said Go never bothered to give Eldon mercy during that fateful night when he ruthlessly and treacherously shot the victim pointblank at the side of the head.

“It is now but an application of minimum fairness that Go be mandated to face the full penalty of his crimes, both civil and criminal,” she said.

Meanwhile, two officials knowledgeable of the rampant abductions in the NBP have expressed doubts over the alleged kidnapping of Go last week.

A Department of Justice source said Go’s claims “made me laugh.”

The source explained that while it is true that abductions inside the NBP reservation have become rampant, the kidnappers are not daring enough to kidnap a known personality.

A Philippine National Police source also expressed doubt that Go and his nephew and personal nurse Clemence Yu were brought out of the NBP on board Yu’s vehicle.

“So, how did the abductors get to the NBP? On board a jeep or a tricycle?” the source said.

NBP is a vast compound located on the highlands of Barangay Poblacion with passenger jeeps and tricycles as major means of public transport.

Contrary to public perception, the jails of NBP are not made of steel bars but of quarters inside three security compounds – maximum, medium, and minimum – located just meters apart.

Sources said that it was common knowledge in the NBP that Go has enjoyed special privileges.

In fact, Go continues to enjoy a living out status – when this privilege should have been cancelled for every prisoner after the escape of former Batangas governor and convicted killer Antonio Leviste last year. – With Aie Balagtas See