I gave up my dream of becoming a medical doctor on my third year in UP Diliman as a BS Zoology student so that my brother Jun, a few years older than me, could pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer. The sacrifice paid off. After more than a decade of legal practice, he was recognized in his field of corporate law, was able to set up his own law office, and was subsequently appointed by then President Joseph Estrada as head of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, a government rank equivalent to that of the Solicitor-General or an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He was the youngest to have ever held such a post.

All our dreams were nipped in the bud by my sister in law's promiscuity who was not even contented with having an affair with a policeman -- which my brother knew all along but ignored because he loved her -- but even went into the gruesome scheme of murdering him. The plan was well executed. On the eve of the birthday celebration of our eldest sister who died of cancer of the ovary, his murderers shot him seven times, hitting several parts of his body -- the palm of his hand (which means he tried to disarm them with his friendly charms), his arms (which means he tried to defend himself with his knowledge in karate when his charms did not work), his back (which means he hid under his van but was still attacked by his murderers), and finally his chest where the fatal wounds are, the bullet ripping off half of his heart's lower chambers.

Inside his van was cold cash amounting to some P100 million pesos packed in several attache cases collected from a client, the Prince of Brunei, which money my sister in law knew he had as indicated by her being the last caller on his cellphone at 12:25 am of 18 March 2000 or a few minutes before the actual murder.

There was a birthday party, too, in the neighborhood at that time and some guests were spilled all over the streets yet none of them ever attempted to save my brother's life. No one dared move against a cheap .37 home-made revolver held by an intoxicated policeman. No one dared save the life of a brilliant lawyer whose legal genius brought back to the Philippines the controversial Marcos wealth.

Knowing that there is such an amount of money inside the vehicle, my sister in law ordered the driver to use another vehicle in the garage. They pushed aside my brother's bleeding body and maneuvered his van so that another vehicle could be used to take him to the hospital. Wonders of all wonders, it took them almost an hour -- as per the neighborhood's common testimony -- to finally speed off a 30 kph -- as per the driver's testimony upon my sister in law's order -- and take my brother to the farthest hospital -- the St. Luke's Medical Center -- when the Heart Center was just a few kilometers away. Once there, my sister in law waited for the news of my brother's death from the doctors in the emergency room. Instead of rushing to his side, as melodramatically common, she borrowed a bottle of alcohol from the nurse, rubbed off the blood stains on her arms, and bid goodbye to everyone because she said she is already tired and would want to change her clothes.

She went home indeed and dragged my most embicile and youngest brother with her. She ordered him to help the maids bring the attache cases into their bedroom. Afterwards, she locked herself in and asked my most embicile and youngest brother to leave the house.

Two weeks after my brother's death, my sister in law pulled out everything -- even the smallest slips of paper -- from the house at Mapangakit ang rented several cargo trucks to bring all their stuff to Davao City, her hometown. Despite terrible resistance from her son -- who claims that his father told him before his death never to leave that house -- she insisted on leaving the place and had his son dragged by four burly men out of the house my brother bought for his children. She succeeded, of course, to take a mini-flight from the crime site.

Yet one may erase all the physical traces of a crime except in one's memory. In one's memory, the conscience continuously nags and nudges until the truth is revealed. A few months after, investigators from the NBI discovered that she was the brains behind the crime and dragged her to prison. Yet, with so much money in her hands, she was able to buy her liberty in the mysterious way from the lower court; she was granted bail by the judge on the flimsy basis of inadmissibility of the gunmen's admission of the crime.

But my brother is still with us. I see him sometimes roaming this house. I feel him sometimes standing by the door staring at me with tears in his eyes.  I can hear his footsteps at night on the second floor when everybody has already gone to sleep, walking to and fro, the way he does when he was still alive and memorizing legal provisions for a court trial the following day or rehearsing his lines for a speech to be delivered in a public forum a few days after.

Yes, my brother is still with us and he has done something to let the Supreme Court justices realize how unjustly he was murdered by his own wife.

My memories of him linger because he still lives in this house. If only I have the paranormal capacity to hear what he is saying everytime he shows his ethereal figure to me. If only I could talk to him even in my dreams or in my mind. But God gave me a limited capacity to see people who already live in a different dimension. I can only see ghosts but I could not talk to them. I could only see them move but I could not understand what they mean or say.

Yet I know he can hear me when I talk to him like a madman. I told him many times to help us bring justice to his death. I told him many times to help us live through this life without his physical presence but with his spiritual guidance. I prayed many times with him and through him and for him so his soul may finally find eternal repose. But he is supposed to live longer and he has not left us.

Now the time of reckoning has come. His treacherous wife will be put behind bars -- hopefully for the rest of her life -- and stripped of all emoluments from his estate. His mother -- our mother -- is slowly recovering from her pneumonia in the hospital and will soon be ambulant. Justice will eventually be achieved; justice will eventually reign supreme. Yes, with the help of God.  

MANILA, Philippines -- The Supreme Court ordered the cancellation of bail and re-arrest of the widow of murdered Office of the Government Corporate Counsel chief Jun Valerio.

In its 12-page decision, the high court’s second division said the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) erred gravely when it disregarded the statement of confessed killer Antonio Cabador linking Milagros Valerio to her husband’s murder and instead granted her bail.

"When taken in conjunction with the other evidence on record, these facts show very strongly that Milagros may have participated as principal by inducement in the murder of Jun Valerio," the decision said.

"It was thus a grave error or a grave abuse of discretion committed by the trial court to grant her application for bail," it said, adding that the Court of Appeals also committed a reversible error in affirming the lower court's ruling.

Valerio was killed in front of his house at Mapang-akit Street, Diliman, Quezon City on March 18, 2000.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) filed an information for murder against Cabador, Martin Jimenez, Samuel Baran and Geronimo Quintana while an information for parricide was filed against Milagros.

The DoJ based its resolution on the testimony of Cabador and Baran, who both said Milagros had paid them to kill her husband.

However, the lower court, citing insufficiency of evidence, granted Milagros bail.

The high court also said the Quezon City RTC also erred in denying the prosecution's motion to use Baran as state witness.

In its ruling, the lower court said it could not see any necessity for using Baran's testimony since it would only corroborate the testimony of another prosecution witness, Modesto Cabador.

"The trial court, however, misapprehended the import of the proposed testimony of Samuel to the successful prosecution of the case against the other accused,” the high court said. “While the testimony of Modesto tends to establish that Milagros and Antonio plotted the killing of Jun Valerio, the evidence that would prove that Milagros and Antonio carried out their sinister plan to eliminate the said victim is supplied by Samuel."

Yesterday, the news spread that the Supreme Court (Second Division) has ruled on my sister's long-standing petition for the cancellation of bail of Milagros Embuscado and the corresponding recognition of Samuel Baran as state witness. It was on page 6 of the printed version of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, reported a friend who reads the broadsheets early in the morning everyday. I searched the web and found the story under the Metro news.

But a day before that, a reporter-friend has already informed me that the Supreme Court resolution has already been signed and issued, and a copy made accessible to the public. I advised him to kill it in the media because my sister-in-law might elude arrest. He acquiesced to my request. But the PDI went on with in, unmindful of the consequences; their point perhaps simply was that they got a scoop. Indeed, it was a scoop but what's the cost -- not to them, but to us, relatives of the murdered OGCC chief Jun N. Valerio?

Yet who argues with media people anyway. There is freedom of the press. But somehow, there ought to be responsible reporting. Ah, but it's been done already. I just hope my sister-in-law will now surrender herself to the proper authorities in order to lessen the impact of her crime.

By all indications, she ordered the murder of my brother. She paid her lover, Antonio Cabador, a policeman at that time, to plot the killing. Cabador admitted this several times on and off the record with mediamen. He also signed sworn affidavits twice admitting his guilt as hired gunman -- together with his nephew Samuel Baran, the least guilty among them and nominated by the prosecution as state witness. In their testimony, both Baran ad Cabador admitted that it was Milagros Embuscado who ordered the murder of her husband -- my brother -- with a promise to pay a certain amount after execution of the plan.

They succeeded in executing the plan but Baran was not paid a single centavo. On the other hand, his cousin was able to construct a new house on a new lot, buy a new car, and set up a catering business while maintaining three wives even when he is already in prison. Meanwhile, Milagros stashed away all the cash deposits of my brother from Metrobank V. Luna -- no less than 50 million pesos -- and perhaps used it to finance her bail.

All these murderers are not my concern. They deserve to rot in prison if not in the hell of their conscience for killing a brilliant lawyer, a loving sibling and father, a generous colleague. He could have been Senator by now or even President of the Philippines. Yet they snuffed out the flames with a cheap .37 revolver and a cheap affair of a former guidance counsellor and a former policeman.

Why this happened I do not know. What I know for sure is that there are more people behind the actual gunmen and my sister in law. If Milagros still wants to appease her soul, she must tell the world who her collaborators were and still are. There is more to this than meets the eye.

But for now, I am so thankful that this country still has reasonable men and women in the Supreme Court who respect and uphold the laws of this land -- justice for a former Justice.

Yesterday, the news spread that the Supreme Court (Second Division) has ruled on my sister's long-standing petition for the cancellation of bail of Milagros Embuscado and the corresponding recognition of Samuel Baran as state witness. It was on page 6 of the printed version of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, reported a friend who reads the broadsheets early in the morning everyday. I searched the web and found the story under the Metro news.

But a day before that, a reporter-friend has already informed me that the Supreme Court resolution has already been signed and issued, and a copy made accessible to the public. I advised him to kill it in the media because my sister-in-law might elude arrest. He acquiesced to my request. But the PDI went on with in, unmindful of the consequences; their point perhaps simply was that they got a scoop. Indeed, it was a scoop but what's the cost -- not to them, but to us, relatives of the murdered OGCC chief Jun N. Valerio?

Yet who argues with media people anyway. There is freedom of the press. But somehow, there ought to be responsible reporting. Ah, but it's been done already. I just hope my sister-in-law will now surrender herself to the proper authorities in order to lessen the impact of her crime.

By all indications, she ordered the murder of my brother. She paid her lover, Antonio Cabador, a policeman at that time, to plot the killing. Cabador admitted this several times on and off the record with mediamen. He also signed sworn affidavits twice admitting his guilt as hired gunman -- together with his nephew Samuel Baran, the least guilty among them and nominated by the prosecution as state witness. In their testimony, both Baran ad Cabador admitted that it was Milagros Embuscado who ordered the murder of her husband -- my brother -- with a promise to pay a certain amount after execution of the plan.

They succeeded in executing the plan but Baran was not paid a single centavo. On the other hand, his cousin was able to construct a new house on a new lot, buy a new car, and set up a catering business while maintaining three wives even when he is already in prison. Meanwhile, Milagros stashed away all the cash deposits of my brother from Metrobank V. Luna -- no less than 50 million pesos -- and perhaps used it to finance her bail.

All these murderers are not my concern. They deserve to rot in prison if not in the hell of their conscience for killing a brilliant lawyer, a loving sibling and father, a generous colleague. He could have been Senator by now or even President of the Philippines. Yet they snuffed out the flames with a cheap .37 revolver and a cheap affair of a former guidance counsellor and a former policeman.

Why this happened I do not know. What I know for sure is that there are more people behind the actual gunmen and my sister in law. If Milagros still wants to appease her soul, she must tell the world who her collaborators were and still are. There is more to this than meets the eye.

But for now, I am so thankful that this country still has reasonable men and women in the Supreme Court who respect and uphold the laws of this land -- justice for a former Justice.