A high profile convicted killer was given executive pardon by President Gloria Arroyo. The government said that the pardon was for humanitarian reason and for good behavioral conduct inside the prison cell. The government further claimed that the pardoned convict has already served the required years of imprisonment based on mathematical calculation of the Department of Justice.
The family of the victims and legal experts, however, disagree claiming that the government, particularly the President erred in approving the executive pardon of Mr. Claudio Teehankee Jr. They accused the government of abandoning the legal process in such a way that the action was taken in secrecy, in violation of the rules on pardon and the law that governs it.
The critics pointed out that right connection and close family ties with the first family made the executive pardon realized. The convicted killer is a member of a prominent and well-off family. The convict was sentenced for the murder of two teenagers sometime in 1991 in a raging burst of gunfire.
After 16 years the man is out of jail in the right place and in the right time. It was an easy exit from the criminal sentence in an easy way of having an executive pardon. Meanwhile, the memories of Fil-European Maureen Hultman and American John Chapman will remain in the criminal record book as victims of heinous crime.