The scene inside a Philippine courtroom on January 31, 1995, was thick with tension. For months, the nation had been captivated by the horrific case of 8-year-old Angel Alquiza. When the judge finally declared the two accused men “guilty,” a wave of relief and applause erupted from the gallery. But the celebration was cut short. The joy turned to stunned silence, then to raw fury, as the sentence was read: reclusión perpetua, or life imprisonment. In a country where the law at the time mandated death for rape with homicide, the judge had chosen mercy for the monstrous. The decision would ignite a national firestorm, placing not just the criminals, but justice itself, on trial.

Angel Alquiza’s story began with a mother’s premonition. On the rainy evening of August 1, 1994, in Tondo, Manila, Angel told her mother, Zenaida, an unusual “ba-bye” before heading out to a neighbor’s stall to buy champorado (chocolate rice porridge). By 10:00 PM, she had not returned. Panic set in, and a frantic search began. The next afternoon, their worst fears were realized. Police received a tip about a sack found floating in the floodwaters of Delpan Street. Inside was the body of a little girl.

The brutality inflicted upon Angel was almost beyond comprehension. She had been bound with a nylon cord. Her head was bashed in, her eyes were gouged out, and her body was riddled with deep stab wounds. The evidence of rape was undeniable. The Alquiza family confirmed the horrifying truth at the morgue: the victim was their beloved Angel.

The investigation quickly zeroed in on the dark, poorly-lit streets of Tondo. The store owner confirmed Angel had been there and was last seen walking toward an area used as a parking garage for pedicabs owned by a man named Ernesto “Goro” Cordero. The trail soon led to one of his drivers, Abundio “Lunday” Lagunday, who was identified as having been seen with Angel in his pedicab that night. Upon his arrest, Lunday implicated his boss, Cordero, and a local garbage collector, Henry Lagarto, as his accomplices. Days later, in a controversial incident, Lunday was shot and killed by police, who claimed he had attempted to grab an officer’s gun while being escorted.

With the primary suspect dead, the prosecution’s case, which lacked any DNA or physical evidence, rested almost entirely on the testimony of its star witness: Herminia Barlam. She was, by all accounts, an unlikely hero—a 50-year-old, partially deaf balut vendor who also had a diagnosed mental disability. Barlam testified that in the early hours of August 2, while looking for a place to relieve herself, she heard screams coming from Cordero’s warehouse. Peeking through a small hole, she claimed to have witnessed Cordero, Lagarto, and Lunday raping the little girl.

The defense launched a merciless assault on her credibility. They argued her hearing impairment made it impossible for her to have heard anything over the rain. They conducted an inspection of the warehouse and claimed it was too dark to see inside. They even brought in a witness who alleged Barlam was coached by the prosecution. The judge, taking the claims seriously, ordered a psychiatric evaluation. Doctors confirmed she had “moderate mental retardation,” but concluded she was still capable of providing truthful testimony if questioned gently. The judge allowed her testimony to stand. In a powerful courtroom moment, she correctly identified Angel from a series of photos and pointed directly at Cordero and Lagarto as the perpetrators.

The defendants presented alibis, with family members swearing they were home all night. But the prosecution, led by the quiet conviction of Herminia Barlam, had done enough. On that fateful day in January 1995, Judge Lorenzo Veneracion declared them guilty.

Then came the sentence that shocked a nation. Judge Veneracion, a devout Christian, openly stated that his decision to impose life imprisonment instead of the death penalty was based on his personal and religious beliefs. “It is not my purpose to please the public,” he declared. “I am only following the command of God.” To add insult to injury, he controversially blamed Angel’s parents, saying they should not have allowed her to go out at night.

The backlash was immediate and immense. The Alquiza family was enraged. Members of Congress called for the judge’s disbarment. The judge even received death threats from the Alex Boncayao Brigade, a notorious communist urban hit squad. The public felt cheated of justice, believing the punishment did not fit the heinous nature of the crime. The firestorm reached the highest level of the judiciary. On May 22, 1996, in a rare and decisive move, the Supreme Court of the Philippines intervened, overruling Judge Veneracion. Citing the mandatory sentencing laws in place at the time, the high court corrected the verdict and imposed the death penalty on Ernesto Cordero and Henry Lagarto, finally aligning the punishment with the law and the public’s demand for justice.