MANILA, Philippines - It was a one-way street that, for 25-year-old Eldon Maguan, too quickly turned into a dead end.

On July 2, 1991, Maguan, a mechanical engineering graduate of De La Salle University, drove into Wilson Street in San Juan, Metro Manila. Earlier that evening, construction magnate Rolito Go had dined in a nearby bakeshop where, witnesses alleged, the businessman stormed out after a fight with his girlfriend, and threatened to shoot the first person who got in his way.

Still raging as he boarded his car, Go entered Wilson Street, driving against the one-way traffic. At the corner of Winston and J. Abad Santos, Maguan?s and Go?s cars nearly slammed into each other. Go alighted from his car, walked over to the other vehicle, shot Maguan who was still at the wheel, and fled.

Maguan, who had yet to take the board exams to become a full-fledged engineer, would live for seven more days. Shortly after he was shot, police arrived at the scene and retrieved an empty shell and one round of live ammunition for a 9-mm caliber pistol. A security guard at the restaurant was able to jot down Go?s plate number.

A manhunt was launched, and on July 8, 1991, Go, accompanied by two lawyers, presented himself before the San Juan Police Station. The police filed a complaint for frustrated homicide against Go and it was received by then First Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio. The charge was changed to murder when Maguan expired the next day.

The trial officially began on September 19, 1991 and lasted for two years. But on November 1, 1993, just four days before Judge Benjamin Pelayo was to issue a verdict, Go bolted the Rizal Provincial Jail during a prayer vigil. He received a life sentence in abstentia.

Go became one of the country?s most wanted men, remaining at large for three more years before being nabbed in a piggery farm in Pampanga in 1996. In an interview after Go?s arrest, a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent from Northern Luzon said several government officials, including a high official of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC), had helped hide Go. Then PACC chief Vice President Joseph Estrada was also implicated although he denied the accusation.

The Northern Luzon agent said Go moved around four Northern Luzon provinces?La Union, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, and Cagayan. He had apparently also been able to undertake construction projects in Metro Manila, and was able to amass P6 million in collectibles, giving rise to suspicions that he was protected by influential people.

Go, who had shaved off his moustache and grew his hair long, was caught by a police team on April 30, 1996, along the Gapan-Olongapo Road. Seized from him were an ATM card, a considerable amount of cash, and an ID of a seaman?s union and community tax certificate issued to Ernesto Diaz, an alias he had been using.

In November 1999, Go, then locked up in the maximum security compound of the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City, asked the Supreme Court through a 57-page petition to annul his life sentence, acquit him for murder, or lower his sentence to a homicide conviction. Crying injustice, he said he had been denied due process largely because of media and public hysteria. While virtually admitting that he did shoot Maguan, Go claimed it was a case of homicide since the act was not planned. The High Court denied his plea.

Go has since then been endorsed for commutation twice (in October 2000 and December 2005), but both endorsements were rejected. In a letter to the Public Attorney?s Office in 2007, he noted: ?Twice I?d been recommended for commutation [of sentence], but because I?m Rolito Go and because my case is sensational, the authorities are afraid of being criticized in the media and by the opposition.?

After Go?s second bid for commutation was filed, his victim?s mother, Rosario Maguan, said that Go had yet to show remorse and had not even paid the more than P3 million awarded to her family by the court as indemnification for the murder of her son. Villa-Ignacio, now government special prosecutor, in his opposition to the petition, further cited: ?Prisoner Go has not offered any reason or excuse why despite his known resources and coming from a well-off family, he has refused and continues to refuse to comply with the judgment rendered.?

Go, through his youngest sister Julie Sy, was able to pay the civil indemnity only in August this year, 17 years after Maguan?s death.

The possibility of Go walking out of jail before serving his full sentence was revived in the first week of October. Following the October 3 release of pardoned convict Claudio Teehankee, Jr., Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez told the media that Go was also ?eligible? for executive clemency and in fact had already submitted a petition for this.

The Maguan family expressed their ?continued unwavering opposition? through a paid print advertisement published in major broadsheets on October 14. Signed by Rosario, the advertisement listed the family?s reasons, saying any leniency given to Go ?would embolden and increase road rage and senseless shooting,? and that Go had already been disqualified from ?any parole, commutation or clemency? when he escaped from prison. Eliza Victoria, Inquirer Research