GAME OF DEATH From: ©1996 The Manila Times

[Clyde Adkins]

From: ©1996 The Manila Times
http://www.portalinc.com/manilatimes/news1.html
Send e-mail to The Times at manil...@portalinc.com
Copyright Reprinted by permission

November 10 - November 16, 1996 issue

[STM] THE NATIONAL SCENE

GAME OF DEATH

By Jojo A. Robles
Reporter

One was a winner who couldn't quit. The other was a loser who
never knew when to walk away. In the end, both of them appeared
to have lost it all.
It all started as a friendly game of cards between people who have
faced each other at the table many times before. Now one of them is
dead and the other is in jail.
This, the dead man's relatives say, is how it went down:
Arnulfo "Arnie" Tuadles, bleary-eyed from two straight nights of
gambling, decided he had had enough. He had won a lot of money.
Now he wanted to go home.
But his opponent in a one-on-one card game of pusoy that night,
Alberto "Ambet" Antonio, would have none of it. Antonio, known
among his fellow cardplayers at the club for his unending requests of
"last five deals" when he was losing, wanted to play some more.
Tuadles was unmoved.
Antonio then made sure Tuadles an indecent proposal--throw the
game and return the money, for a percentage of the amount.
Tuadles, after all, was gambling with money owned by the owner of
the club, garment businessman Danny Dewani, a mutual friend who
didn't want to play with Antonio.
"Ano ka, hilo?" said the former basketball star, belittling the
offer.
Antonio pulled out a gun and shot Tuadles square in the face,
killing
him where he sat across his fellow cardplayer at the table.

Wilfredo "Fred" Tuadles shakes his head slowly as he recounts this
version of what happened on the morning of November 2 at the IBC
International Club in Greenhills, San Juan.
Fred, 46, elder brother of the former Toyota first-stringer, was in
Cebu when he learned of the shooting. While he was still trying to
get
more details about the tragedy, he says, he promptly lost another
relative.
Fred's 80-year-old mother-in-law learned about the killing from
Fred's wife and promptly collapsed. The old woman never regained
consciousness and was pronounced dead at a Cebu City hospital.
"She always loved Arnie because Arnie was very malambing to
her," Fred says, shaking his head some more. "That's why, for my
own family, Arnie's killing was a double tragedy."
Fred says the Tuadles family believes that its version of the
events
which led to Arnie's killing will be proven to be the correct one by
the courts soon enough.
"We pieced together what happened from people who have a
reason to know what actually took place," says Fred, who runs an
outfit which takes care of the elderly in Los Angeles, California.
The statement is a broad hint that the Tuadleses have an eyewitness
who will ensure that Antonio, the former chairman of the Games and
Amusements Board, is nailed on the murder charge the family is
seeking against Arnie's self-confessed killer.
(Antonio and his lawyers, on the other hand, are pushing an
"accidental firing" theory to get the case downgraded to homicide, a
bailable offense. The strategy is based on a defense that Tuadles and
Antonio got entangled in a scuffle for Antonio's gun, which suddenly
went off, killing the former basketball player.)
But while Arnie's relatives are pretty sure that they have the case
sewn up, they aren't at all certain that the courts will see it their
way.
"You know how it is," he adds. "I overheard someone at the fiscal's
office say that this legal battle will be 'pahabaan ng pisi.' Unlike
our
opponent, we don't have much money. We don't know how long it
will take to give us justice, or how much that will cost us. God
knows, we have so little to spare."
Looking back, Fred says he wishes Arnie had listened to him and
spent the All Saints' Day weekend in Cebu, helping his elder brother
with a land claim in Cebu that Fred had come home from California
for.
"Arnie always listens to me," Fred says. "He had a lot of respect
for
me as an elder brother. That's why even if we are already a very
close family, I think we were the closest among the 12 children of
my parents.
"But he said he had to stay in Manila some more. I've also had a
lot
of respect for Arnie's opinion. Now he's dead."

In a basketball-crazy country, playing in the Manila pro league
isn't
just every other young man's wet dream--it's the one-way ticket out
of Povertyland for entire families.
For the seven boys in the Tuadles family, the height they inherited
from their parents opened up the possibility of getting college
degrees--and better lives--without paying tuition.
All seven went through school on basketball scholarships, playing
for Cebu-based Cebu Institute of Technology (Jovie, Fred, Jeffrey),
the University of the Visayas (Arnie, Celso), and Southwestern
University (Calvin). The youngest of the Tuadles brood, 26-year-old
Eric, is currently playing ball for Manila's De La Salle University.
"My father was a driver and my mother was just a housewife," says
Fred. "They had 12 kids, and they couldn't possibly send them all to
school."
The brothers' six-foot average height got them on the team and
college degrees. Arnie and Calvin made the professional Philippine
Basketball Association. But of all seven Tuadleses, Arnie was the
hands-down best player.
"He was not only the tallest, at six-two, he also had the most
talent," Fred recalls. "He had all the moves. He was graceful."
In 1979, on his first year in the big league, Arnie made basketball
history by getting named Rookie of the Year and landing a spot on
the Mythical FiveÐthe first player to get the two awards
simultaneously.
When back problems finally forced Arnie to retire in 1992, after he
had played for Toyota, Presto, Gilbey's Gin (Ginebra), Alaska, and
Shell, Arnie had spent 13 years as a pro.
After retiring, Arnie and his brothers put up Tuadles Construction,
an electrical-mechanical contracting firm whose clients were mostly
factories. Jovie, an engineer, was president, while Arnie took on the
position of vice president for marketing.
"Business is OK," says Fred. "We've had our share of multi-million
contracts. Even if we do have problems collecting sometimes."
In retirement, Arnie started holding basketball clinics in Cebu,
his
way of giving back to the game that made him a sports hero.
By the time tragedy struck, the Tuadleses had long left behind
their
impoverished roots. All of the men had college degrees, families of
their own, and a solid business.
At 40, Arnie Tuadles looked like a model ex-athlete--comfortably
retired and in business, raising four sons aged 17 to nine with his
wife, a former model from Cebu named Maria Odyssa, or Suzette.

Arnie Tuadles--like Ambet Antonio--was a regular at IBC, the
members-only nightspot formerly known as Club 419 and watering
hole of choice of Vice President Joseph Estrada and his numerous
friends and hangers-on.
Many have surmised that Tuadles joined Estrada's circle through
the vice president's son Jinggoy, the mayor of San Juan and a known
basketball groupie.
The mayor, in fact, has been very visible in the investigation of
the
incident. Antonio even surrendered to the younger Estrada on the
night of November 2, hours after the actual shooting took place.
However, Tuadles' inclusion in the Estrada universe, sources say,
was the result of the ball player's direct connection to the vice
president himself.
Tuadles, these sources maintain, was a political operative of the
vice president and served as Estrada's chief campaigner in Cebu and
other parts of the Visayas during the latter's bid for the country's
second-highest position in 1992.
Ironically, they add, Tuadles was introduced to the elder Estrada
by
Georgie Antonio, a brother of Ambet Antonio and a top political
strategist of the vice president.
"In fact, it is Georgie, not Ambet, who is close to Erap," one
source
says. "Ambet is more identified as an associate of [Tarlac Rep. Jose]
Peping Cojuangco. It was because of Ambet's association to Peping
that he got the job at GAB during Cory's term as President."
In previous interviews, Mayor Jinggoy Estrada has confirmed this
assertion.
The source adds that Georgie invited Tuadles to the Estrada camp
after the 1988 local elections, after the ball player's unsuccessful
run
for the vice mayoral seat of his hometown of Danao City. While
Tuadles failed to get elected, the source says, Georgie Antonio
recognized Arnie's potential as a campaigner in the Visayas for
Estrada.
The source adds that the Estrada connection was further cemented
by Tuadles' friendship to another Estrada diehard, pro star Phillip
Cezar. Cezar was at the time starting a successful political campaign
of his own in the Estrada bailiwick of San Juan under the aegis of
the
Estrada family.
Thus, when Estrada made his bid for the presidency in late 1991,
Tuadles was already firmly entrenched in the organization. And even
after Estrada opted to run for vice president with tycoon Eduardo
"Danding" Cojuangco, Tuadles remained his top campaign man in
the Visayas, the source adds.
Estrada ended up third in Cebu in the 1992 polls, but he still held
Tuadles in high esteem because the vice presidential candidates who
beat him were hometown boys Marcelo Fernan and Emilio Osmeña,
says the source.
Proof of this was a very private dinner Estrada hosted right after
his
1992 victory at his home for his top political operatives, the same
source relates. What made the dinner special was the fact that
Estrada cooked the meal for his guests himself. Only Georgie
Antonio, Tuadles, and a handful of political workers were privileged
to share the fruits of Erap's culinary labors.
The source relates that Tuadles was also one of the first invited
by
Estrada to join the vice president's Presidential Anti-Crime
Commission.
Tuadles, however, decided that he would be of no use to Estrada's
crime-fighting organization and begged off.
"Erap thought highly of Arnie because he did not jump at the
chance to share in the spoils, unlike his other supporters," the
source
says. "Since then, Arnie has been a good friend."
Fred Tuadles believes that there will be no whitewash in the case,
principally because the Estradas have promised to help them "all the
way."
"We know the vice president to be a man of his word," Fred says
as the wake ended Friday morning. "He has told us that no one will
be spared merely because he is close to him. We believe that."
And even if the family doesn't have the resources to engage
Antonio in a protracted legal battle, they are consoled by recent
developments which tend to back up their position that Arnie was
killed in cold blood by the former GAB boss.
"At the beginning, the family was very down, especially because we
thought many inconsistencies in Antonio's version would be glossed
over," he says.
The delay of several hours between the actual shooting of Arnie
and the time the incident was reported to the police, Fred says, has
been sufficiently explained by James Bobis, one of the two security
guards at the club and an eyewitness to the slaying.
The guard said late last week that Antonio ordered him and another
watchman, Eduardo Ilac, to go to Antonio's house while the suspect
tried to contact his lawyer and figured out what to do.
Bobis has recanted his earlier statement which placed him
downstairs at IBC--not on the second floor, where he could have
witnessed the incident.
"We are glad that Bobis has listened to his conscience," he says.
"Now we know that Antonio was forcing him to lie about what he
really knew."
The Tuadles family, Fred says, is also elated that medico legal
findings tend to throw out Antonio's assertion of a scuffle taking
place before the shooting. The results of examinations on the body of
Tuadles indicate that there were no signs of any injuries that would
have resulted in a fistfight prior to the discharge of the weapon.
The ex-pro's family has vehemently protested that a scuffle could
have taken place--and that Antonio would have won it, in any case.
"My husband was still a strong man, bigger and much younger than
Antonio," sniffs Suzette Tuadles. "If there had been a fight, Antonio
would surely have lost to Arnie."
As the family gathers for a prayer meeting before leaving for the
airport to take Arnie's body home to Danao City last Friday, they
appear guardedly hopeful.
But because of a mix-up, the pastors of the Tuadleses' born-again
congregation arrive at the Magallanes Church (where the wake had
been held) only after the coffin has been taken to the airport for
the
afternoon flight to Cebu City.
"It doesn't matter if the body is no longer here," intones the
Caucasian born-again minister who presides over the meeting. "We
are gathered, after all, also to minister to those that the deceased
has
left behind."
Through her sunglasses, Suzette Tuadles looks up at the ceiling of
the mortuary. "Amen," she responds, loudly.

[Eric Cardenas]

Clyde Adkins <sha...@syix.com> wrote in article
<56353t$f...@neko.syix.com>...

> Arnulfo "Arnie" Tuadles, bleary-eyed from two straight nights of
> gambling, decided he had had enough. He had won a lot of money.
> Now he wanted to go home.
>

Arnie's life would have been spared if the stakes were "pitik-bayag" and
not money. After all, there would be no strength to pull the trigger while
nursing sore balls.

8-)