PART 9   
       'could have thrown.............
witnesses' testimonies out....
of court'

         In the same affidavit the NBI Director for Central Visayas, Villarin directly contradicts Mrs. Chiong’s and Sheila Singson’s testimony.  He said that “it was their office that first investigated the disappearance of Jacqueline and Marijoy Chiong upon the request of their parents Mrs. Thelma Chiong and Dionisio Chiong on July 18, 1997,” or two days after the girls disappeared. Could this have been the reason why the prosecutors were afraid to allow Villarin to testify?
 
         
 DID THE CHIONGS LIE TO PROVIDE THE MOTIVE? Days
 after  the  reported abduction,  Mr. and Mrs. Chiong  were
 asked by then NBI Regional Director for the Visayas Flor
 Villarin  who  were  the suitors of her missing daughters,
 they never mentioned neither Larrañaga nor Aznar. 

      The director, “personally interviewed Mrs. Thelma Chiong in the presence of her husband to get the facts surrounding the disappearance of their daughters….. and Mrs. Chiong disclosed to us a certain..... (name withheld to protect his privacy) from Tacloban City but residing in Labangon, Cebu City, as the only one courting Jacqueline or Marijoy but she never mentioned to us the name of Francisco Larrañaga as one of those courting any of her daughters, and neither did she mentioned to us the names of the other accused in this case.”

      Yet in his affidavit which Mr. Chiong want us to believe was prepared on July 23, 1997, or five days after their NBI interview, Mr. Chiong had an entirely different story to tell.

       In this affidavit, he now claims “Francisco Juan Larrañaga alias Paco was an admirer Marijoy.

        In the same affidavit, Dionisio Chiong conveniently implicates not only Larrañaga but also Aznar as an admirer of Jacqueline. This information laid the ground for their being the main suspects. Read more about this "doctored" affidavit in Part 13 of this website.

      After failing to “convince” the earlier suspects arrested (Balansag and Caño) to point to them as the masterminds, this affidavit laid the grounds for their arrest. 

      For whatever reason, Mr. Chiong was never presented in court. Mrs. Chiong was given the difficult task to echo Mr. Chiong’s affidavit in open court.

     “Sheila Singson was also interviewed but, like Mrs. Chiong, she never mentioned to us the name of Francisco Larrañaga and the names of the other accused in this case,“  Villarin says in his  affidavit.

    “Ms. Singson, however, alleged that she saw somebody who appeared suspicious passing by the Global Village, where she and Jacqueline worked, on the evening of the victims’ disappearance; hence a cartographic sketch was drawn by our artist based the description she furnished us but said sketch was not clear.” Villarin added.

     Yet, Singson’s testimony after being paid “lumpsum” for her testimony under the “Witness Protection Program,” had an entirely new story to tell.

       Mr. Chiong was quoted in the radio last February 2004, that the prosecution witnesses were paid lump sum by the Department of Justice for their testimonies and that they cannot anymore change their testimonies since they will file perjury charges against them if they do.

     At this point, one begins to wonder, who really was powerful at that time, the Aznars and the Larrañagas  with  no  one  to  run  to,  or  the Chiongs with their direct connection to Malacañang.

     They who were languishing in jail, or they who can make ombudsmen, judges and Regional Directors out of any man…or woman.

     They who were at the mercy of the judge, or they who threatened the judge “to give them death or resign.”