I was deputized as a Special Prosecutor by the Department of Justice to handle cases filed against guerillas in the Provincial Courts.
The case assigned to me was a case of murder of civilians in Gumaca committed by a guerilla officer and his men for command responsibility as Battalion Commander.
The criminal case was filed by the Provincial Fiscal of Quezon Province, but it was feared that he might not be able to prosecute it successfully for fear of reprisals or other causes. Hence, I was ordered to handle the case, with a bodyguard and a jeep, with the support of the P.C. in Quezon under Lt. Col. Francisco del Castillo, an Ilocano from Vigan, Ilocos Sur.
To continuously prosecute the case, which had been pending for a long time, I was stationed in Lucena with my bodyguards, consisting of P.C. soldiers.
I stayed in the house of Mg. Trining near the town plaza.
There in Lucena I met my two former classmates, Felix Brillantes and his wife, Cleopatra Bilgera, who had a grocery store, a restaurant, and a hotel in their three-story building, the tallest building in the center of Lucena, near the marketplace.
Felix and I used to jog up to the top of Casamata Hill, where we took a bath with the very cold water of the reservoir overflow pipe every early morning after our graduation in 1935 from high school.
They were the richest family in Lucena, with two beautiful daughters.
I used to chat with them and enjoyed recalling our boyhood experiences in Bangued, Abra.
Every afternoon I played tennis with Capt. Red, C.O., Lucena P.C., and every weekend Col. del Castillo and I went dancing in the cabarets where the well-to-do people there enjoyed themselves.
The Estrada case was left by me unfinished. I got orders assigning me to the PMA in 1955 Summer Vacation.
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