Justice for JC Accad
SOME days ago, a friend who is an official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) forwarded to me a Facebook public comment that criticized media in general, and national broadcast media in particular, for not giving the Justine Charles “JC” Accad case more coverage. The author of the post lamented that the death of Christine Dacera was prominently featured in breaking news and follow-up stories. JC’s brutal death, on the other hand, got scant coverage.
The Manila Times was one of the several news organizations that posted the missing person notice. When the news broke that JC’s body was found, his head wrapped in packaging tape, hands tied to the feet with wire, my instant reaction was that JC was yet another salvage victim. The case of Ferdinand “Franzel” Escalante came to mind. Franzel, 35, a member of the Negros Oriental LGBT community and organizer of gay pageants, was found shot dead inside his car, parked along a road in Bacong, Negros Oriental. His head was wrapped in plastic.
Such murder cases are seldom if ever solved. While some of the victims and scores of others who were murdered by killers riding motorcycles or vans or by gunmen who entered the homes of their victims and shot them point blank in front of their children were linked — by the police — to drugs, not all of them were. Of course, “drugs” is the magic word. If “sesame” opens up, “drugs” closes. The mere mention of drugs in murder cases closes the minds and hearts of most members of the public. After all, didn’t the victim get what he or she deserved?
So, here was another salvaging victim, I thought. And social workers demanding justice because he was one of them. Like lawyers condemning extrajudicial killings (EJK) only when the victim is a lawyer. But we must speak up against all these murders, whether EJK or not, and whoever is the victim!
Justine Charles Mangaser Accad, like all victims of crime, deserves justice. At 30, he had his life ahead of him. He and his girlfriend — a fellow social worker — were expecting a child and were set to get married on April 11. According to information posted in the internet, JC was from Zamboanga City and studied at Pilar College, a Catholic school. He passed the 2014 social worker licensure examination. At the time of his death, he was a Social Welfare Officer 2 assigned at the DSWD National Capital Region field office.
On that fateful day — Friday February 19 — that he went missing, JC had left his home in Marikina, driving his car to the office. His regular schedule appears to have been to report to the DSWD NCR field office in Manila before going to the DSWD office in San Juan. He never reached the San Juan office. JC was reported missing on the same day.
Two days later, JC’s naked body was found in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. The body had been placed inside a sack. The police would report that JC died of suffocation due to the packaging tape wrapped around his head. JC’s hands were tied to his feet with wire. There was no sign of his car.
The police initially mentioned three possible motives including work-related causes. What the reports do not mention is robbery. One has to go back to the missing person story to learn that on Fridays, JC usually picked up a million pesos or more in cash at the DSWD NCR field office in Manila and personally transported it to San Juan where it was used to may pay-outs for hospitalization and other cash assistance. On February 19, however, there was no cash, only guarantee letters, to deliver to San Juan, JC’s girlfriend told the Manila Bulletin when the paper interviewed her in connection with the missing person story. But maybe JC’s abductorkillers didn’t know this. Maybe they thought he had a million pesos or more stacked inside his car.
Lawyer Aimee Torrefranca-Neri, the DSWD undersecretary for operations, in a memorandum dated February 24 assured the department’s social workers and special disbursing officers that coordination was being done with the Office of the President to get security detail from the Philippine National Police “in all DSWD offsite direct payouts.”
DSWD employees pick up, deliver and disburse millions of pesos in cash every week, with little if any security escort or support. While still in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it is obvious that the country is already in election mode. Add the desperation of many who have suffered loss of income. While we still don’t know if robbers murdered JC Accad, the risk faced by anyone who transports or is believed to transport large sums of cash, is real.