Posted date: May 06, 2009

The decision of a Taiwanese appellate court to commute Nemencia “Cecille” Alcaraz’s death sentence to life imprisonment comes as a relief to her family and supporters, the foreign affairs staff in Taipei—and the former teacher of English herself. But the legal drama is far from over, because the family of the Taiwanese victim, a job recruiter named Chou Mei-yun, has vowed to appeal the ruling.

“They [the family] think there are diplomatic factors in the change of the ruling because the Philippines has abolished the death penalty, so Manila put pressure on Taiwan to give [her] a lighter sentence,” said Kaohsiung City councilor Chen Mei-chuan.

The murder-robbery case, which includes evidence in the form of surveillance camera footage, will likely end up in Taiwan’s Supreme Court.

The Manila Economic and Cultural Office, the country’s de facto embassy in Taipei, has been quick, not so much to claim credit for the legal strategy that led to the decision, but to foist an interpretation on the commutation. A MECO lawyer, Art Abiera, even suggested that if Alcaraz continues to insist on her innocence, this could lead to another trial and, possibly, another death sentence.

But doesn’t MECO read the local papers? Taiwanese newspapers have reported the victim’s family’s full intent to appeal the ruling. Thus, whether Alcaraz insists on her innocence or not, the possibility of the commutation being reversed in its turn is all too real.

We belabor this point, because the only thing apparent about this whole case is the inadequacy of the Philippine government’s response.

Migrante International is not exactly a cheerleader for government policy, but it does follow cases like this with close attention to detail. So when its chair, Garry Martinez, says the following, we should sit up and take notice: “DFA and MECO officials shamelessly claim that the Alcaraz family should be jubilant with the commutation. In the first place, she had a fair chance of winning her case, if only the government did their responsibility of providing her timely legal assistance.”

According to Migrante, Alcaraz was forced to claim responsibility for the murder (a confession she later retracted) because she was under duress. “The Taiwanese NGO noted that all Cecilia had at that time was an incompetent interpreter who was very poor in English,” Martinez said.

Migrante also alleges that MECO supplied Alcaraz with a lawyer only when the case gained international notoriety, and a competent interpreter only last April 1—a full six months after the trial court sentenced her to death. The lawyer, Martinez added, even failed to show up at the April 1 hearing.

To be sure, Alcaraz’s defense counsel was able to lay a solid argument for reasonable doubt during the April 20 hearing, noting that she had no motive to kill the victim, that she had no physical marks to suggest a struggle, that in point of fact it was illogical for her to invite the victim to her house, if she had wanted to kill her.

Ranged against this argument is the prosecution’s evidence: closed-circuit TV footage showing her disposing of the body in a garbage bag and ATM receipts from the victim’s bank account. Alcaraz says it was actually two Taiwanese friends of the victim’s who killed her, and she was merely forced to confess to the crime.

Two levels of the Taiwanese judiciary have accepted the prosecution’s version of the truth; the appellate court commuted the sentence to life in prison, a court spokesman explained, only because “the killing was a sudden occurrence, and was not premeditated” and because Alcaraz “did not carefully plan her crime and did not obtain a large amount of money, so she is not considered to be an extremely evil criminal.”

Is it still possible for defense counsel to argue, perhaps before Taiwan’s Supreme Court, that Alcaraz deserves not mere clemency but complete exoneration? We would like to think so, but MECO’s track record in this case and its seeming readiness to equate commutation with closure are worrying. The promise that every overseas Filipino worker entangled in a legal case is entitled to a full legal defense has been made. Is MECO prepared to turn it into reality?