Death in a Poker Game

But on Nov. 2, the card-players were alone except for security personnel and Antonio's bodyguard. Antonio was trailing by some $3,500. As the game neared its end, he allegedly shot his opponent with a single bullet between the eyes.

Antonio says he acted in self-defense: "It was homicide, not murder." He alleges that during an argument, Tuadles tried to grab his gun from a desk beside the card table. In the ensuing scuffle, the weapon went off. An autopsy later showed that Tuadles had indeed been shot from close range. But there was no sign of extensive bruising that might have indicated a fight. "If there was a struggle, Arnold would have overpowered Ambet Antonio," says Tuadles's widow, Suzette.

Other aspects of the affair have caused misgivings among top Philippine officials. Rather than call an ambulance, prosecutors allege, Antonio let his rival bleed to death as his bodyguard, a sergeant in the San Juan police force, looked on. The gambler contacted mayor Estrada that afternoon, and later gave himself up. But, allege two of the club's security guards, that was only after Antonio forced them to go to his house in Quezon City, where evidence of the game was burned. Meanwhile, Antonio's driver supposedly dumped Tuadles' car in a nearby town.

Local law enforcers' handling of the case has caused murmurings in the Senate of a cover-up. On Nov. 6, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, a former defense secretary, said that he suspected "an effort to help somebody off the hook" through omissions in police work. "If this happens I'll see to it that your organization suffers," he warned national police chief Recaredo Sarmiento, who did not receive an official report until five days after the killing.

Another murky point was that a police investigator handed over to Antonio's lawyer the laser sight used on the defendant's 9-mm Beretta, thereby tampering with the evidence. Nor has the slug that killed Tuadles been found. In addition, Antonio was initially detained in the air-conditioned office of San Juan police chief Fernando Dumpit. The suspect was moved to the local jail only after media complaints about his "VIP" treatment.

Senators are furious that a local law enforcer was moonlighting as bodyguard to Antonio. The gambler says the arrangement was a perk from his days as chairman of the Games and Amusement Board, a post he relinquished in 1992. But some suspect that Antonio's powerful connections may have influenced police moves. He belongs to a family linked to gambling and other rackets in the 1960s.

Senatorial anger seems to have had an effect on the police. Dumpit was fired. Antonio's bodyguard and driver, together with the police sleuth who tampered with the laser sight, have been charged with accessory to murder after a security guard recanted his testimony that the death was accidental. A decision is now pending on whether the case will go to trial.

Could the killing tar Joseph Estrada? As head of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission, the vice-president and his agents are among the few people in San Juan with security clearance for a laser-sight gun. The perception is growing that, despite his crime-busting image, Estrada counts underworld characters among his friends. Some in Manila would like such views to stick, for Estrada is a leading contender in the presidential polls of 1998. But with serious campaigning more than a year away, the IBC affair is unlikely to hurt him unless incriminating evidence comes to light.