Passion of the Christ in November – The Torture and Murder of Moises Padilla That was November 14, 1951 on a Wednesday – the day just after Moises Padilla’s eventual electoral defeat as mayor of Magallon town via Goons, Guns and Gold of the man who hated him so much due to his disobedience to yield in favour of his opponent. In a doctor-friend’s house with a retinue of confidants, there he sought for help and intercession for them with then Governor Rafael Lacson of Negros Occidental. The endeavour was unexpectedly obviated – it was already 1:00 O’clock in the morning the next day when a company of “Special Police,” the feared and dreaded SPs who are the personal private army of the Governor suddenly surged in the physician’s residence, unarmed with any warrant of arrest. The target of their rampage was Moises Padilla and company – carted away from the house with the main man separated from the others. The custodian of Moises Padilla was Isabela town mayor and in transit, his captors commenced the Luciferian harsh and unruly bacchanalia of pandemonium. When the party of SPs and goons reached the destination, Moises Padilla’s face depicts Christ’s initial torture in the movie “Passion of the Christ” by Mel Gibson. He was investigated by the Bacolod City mayor handcuffed and barefoot, with puffed bloody face, engorged eyes and messed up stature, only to be informed that he be brought to the house of Jose Gayona – the man who defeated him in that election. After that first salvo of bestiality, Moises Padilla was detained in his hometown of Magallon jail. He was visited by his mother with some food, in deep silent cry and lament, who saw his son in total living wreck. All his mother can do is to feed him even though he can no longer afford to swallow nourishment. A few SP guards remained and the other bunch of barbarians in their highest laugh and revelry were outside, so that Moises was able to whisper to his mother to contact Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay. Maria Padilla knows not what happens next – two days after continuous and excessive tortures, beating and human abuse of his son, in the afternoon of Friday, she arrived in Manila to seek rescue from Magsaysay. But too late the hero, Moises Padilla – the World War II guerrilla hero is already cold dead and exhausted of the breath of life due to massive beatings and tortures. Thursday, the day before, handcuffed and barefoot, messed up, bloodied, very weak and barely can walk, Moises Padilla was brought to the Magallon cemetery wherein another orgy of inhuman torture took place, with his head banged into a tomb’s marble marker until the victim of monsters and vultures dropped unconscious – in compliance to the command of Governor Rafael Lacson. At night time, he was again taken to the municipal jail. While his mother was on her way to meet Defense Secretary Monching Magasaysay, the Special Police and goons of the governor were again in euphoria administering devilish beatings and torture to Moises Padilla and the mayhem lasted until evening. An hour before the emergence of a new dawn, no agony, torment and pain can be heard again from Maria Padilla’s beloved son. On the early morning of November 17, 1951, Saturday, the SPs and goons of Governor Lacson brought the lifeless body to the provincial hospital but the management refused to receive the body, so that the still warm corpse was brought back to Magallon town. Moises Padilla’s dead body lying face-down, drenched with blood, still handcuffed, soiled and barefoot, riddled with more or less 20 bullets with various calibres. Such gruesome scene cannot be endured by the “Pieta” and lamentation of a mother. Defense Secretary Monching Magsaysay with battalions of marines hastily went to Magallon, vowing to end the “reign of terror” in the town. He ordered the arrest of the town’s and the neighboring town’s policemen and the governor’s dreaded Special Police and goons. In response, President Elpidio Quirino suspended Governor Rafael Lacson from office. The wheel of justice prevailed. After two years of trial, the court convicted Governor Lacson and his monster acolytes guilty for murdering Moises Padilla – the World War II guerrilla hero. Ten years after the Ampatuan like heinous crime and Passion of the Christ like Calvary of Moises Padilla, the conviction of death penalty was upheld by the Supreme Court. But justice was not totally served, Liberal Party’s Governor Rafael Lacson and two other Town Mayors were spared from death – the nobody and idiotic six Indio Special Police and Goons eventually were served with the death penalty. The fallen hero – Moises Padilla still wail and cry in his lonely grave up to this date, for often than not, justice in the country where vultures, crocodiles and boas proliferate is selective and the severity of penalties is only administered to those who are nobody – without power and wealth. The principal characters of the gory drama were spared from the death penalty with Moises Padilla’s consolation of renaming Magallon town to Moises Padilla. Dr. Delmar Topinio Taclibon, Bt., DKR, KRSS, BSCE, MBA, PhD.D.A. Reference: Supreme Court Decision in G.R. No. L-18188 , February 13, 1961, PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff, vs. RAFAEL LACSON, ET AL., accused.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:44:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015