Hot Ears

Mrs. Carmen Nicholson Gispert had known all along that her husband Francis Gispert was risking his life by helping Father Walter B. Hogan to break the labor monopoly of Manila's waterfont held by the racketeering Union de Obreros Estivadores de Filipino, (TIME, March 12). After Gispert was shot dead on March i, Mrs. Gispert aided police in tracking down her husband's killer, a 34-year-old waterfront tough named Arturo de los Santos y Esteban.

Santos confessed: "I didn't want to do it. Johnny, he ordered me to kill Gispert ... Even when I met .Gispert on the staircase, I didn't want to do it. I even talked to him and asked him for a job. He got sore and said 'Goddammit' to me. That heated my ears, so I said 'Goddammit to you, also,' and then I shot him. Afterwards I went to the Quiapo church to pray and repent my sin."

Manila police said that Johnny was John Montgomery, Philippine-born, U.S.-naturalized president of a U.O.E.F. branch. Gispert had accused him of padding a payroll by 47,000 pesos. Picked up next day, Montgomery said: "I don't know what this is all about." With Santos, he will go on trial this week. Fearing an upsurge of waterfront violence, police guarded the Gispert home day & night, while Mrs. Gispert and her children remained indoors. Said Father Hogan: "The U.O.E.F. is now fighting for its very life."

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