The blast, which left four people dead and over 60 others wounded, was part of a series of terrorist attacks in different parts of the country on Feb. 14, 2005, which were later referred to as the “Valentine’s Day bombings.”

The 19-page ruling written by Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno was promulgated on Jan. 10, but was released to the media only Wednesday—a day after a similar bomb attack on a passenger bus occurred also in Makati.

Supreme Court spokesperson Midas Marquez said the announcement of the ruling was “just a coincidence.”

Curiously, the perpetrators in both bombings asked the bus conductor if the vehicle was going to Ayala Avenue, a main road in the country’s premier business district.

Concurring with Sereno’s decision were Associate Justices Conchita Carpio-Morales, Arturo Brion, Lucas Bersamin and Martin Villarama Jr.

In its decision, the justices said the Court of Appeals was right when it upheld the Oct. 18, 2005, RTC ruling declaring Gamal Baharan, Angelo Trinidad and Rohmat Abdurrohim guilty of setting off a powerful bomb inside the RRCG bus bound for Muntinlupa City.

Baharan and Trinidad, a Muslim convert, were arrested in separate police operations a week after the blast.

Conspiracy findings

In television interviews shortly after the bombing and before the trial, Baharan and Trinidad admitted to being members of the Abu Sayyaf who were trained by the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah to manufacture bombs.

Abdurrohim, an Indonesian, was arrested a month later in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, site of the worst election-related violence in the country where 57 people were killed in November 2009.

The high tribunal upheld the findings of the lower court which declared that the accused conspired with one another in carrying out the bomb attack.

“Conspiracy was clearly established from the ‘collective acts of the accused-appellants before, during and after the commission of the crime,’” the high court said.

The RTC initially sentenced the three to death by lethal injection, but the appeals court modified the sentence to life imprisonment following the abolition of death penalty.

State witness

In issuing its decision, the lower court relied on the testimony of another confessed Abu Sayyaf member, Gappal Bannah Asali, who maintained that he attended training sessions for bomb-making under Abdurrohim.

Asali, who turned state witness, said he was also tasked by Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Solaiman and Abdurrohim to provide the TNT and other ingredients to manufacture explosives.

Moments after the blast, Abu Solaiman told radio station dzBB that the bombing was their “Valentine’s gift” to then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

In contesting their conviction, the accused said that the RTC erred in its ruling when it failed to conduct a “searching inquiry” to determine “voluntariness and full comprehension” of their guilty plea.

TV interview

The accused said the prosecution also had failed to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt since Asali’s testimony was not enough to prove the allegation of conspiracy.

The accused described as circumstantial the deposition of the bus conductor, Elmer Andales, identifying them as the “two suspicious-looking men” who boarded and alighted from the bus moments before the explosion happened.

The high court, however, rejected the arguments of the accused, stressing that Baharan and Trinidad both admitted their participation in the crime in the TV interviews.

Marlon Ramos, Phil. Daily Inquirer