Dacer daughters file murder raps vs Ping

MANILA, Philippines - The daughters of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer sought yesterday the indictment of Sen. Panfilo Lacson for the abduction and gruesome deaths of their father and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

In a nine-page affidavit of complaint, Dacer sisters Carina, Sabina, Emily and Amparo said it was Lacson who “ordered the killing of our father” based on a recent testimony of another principal suspect, former senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II, who is expected to be extradited from the United States on March 31.

“Sen. Lacson not only conspired with the accused in the murders of our father and Mr. Corbito but in fact orchestrated the same,” the Dacer sisters said in their affidavit filed with the Department of Justice through their counsels.

“Being then the head of the PAOCTF (Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force) he exercised ascendancy over all members of the task force, particularly those who executed the killings,” the complaint read.

“To be sure, the acts of PAOCTF personnel involved before, during and after the gruesome killing of our father and Mr. Corbito could have only been done upon the direction of Sen. Lacson,” the Dacers said.

The Dacer sisters executed the affidavit last March 23 in New York and California in the US where they now live. Their lawyers are Demetrio Custodio Jr., Raymond de Castro and Love Joy Cecilia Brillantes said.

The Dacer sisters said Lacson should also be held liable for reportedly facilitating the escape of the other suspects to the US. The senator reportedly met several times with the suspects in the US.

Aside from Mancao, the other principal suspects in the twin murders who are in the US are former senior superintendents Glenn Dumlao and Michael Ray Aquino.

Motive exists

“Sen. Lacson has an axe to grind, so to speak, against our father. Our father strongly opposed Sen. Lacson’s appointment as chief of the Philippine National Police during the Estrada administration,” the Dacer affidavit read. “Our father had repeatedly told us a few months before his disappearance on Nov. 24, 2000 that if something happened to him, there should be no one else to blame but Sen. Lacson,” they recalled.

Mancao, in an affidavit signed last Feb. 14 in Broward County, Florida, said he heard Lacson order Aquino sometime in October 2000 to kill Dacer.

The contents of the affidavit were first reported by The STAR columnist Tony Calvento last March 16. 

Lacson headed the PAOCTF while concurrently chief of PNP at the time of the murders.

Aquino, on the other hand, was operations chief of the PAOCTF while Mancao served as chief of Task Force Luzon of the PAOCTF.

“It is apparent that there is a need for a reopening and reinvestigation in order to determine whether probable cause exists to hold Sen. Lacson for trial as a co-conspirator in the murders of our father and Mr. Corbito,” the Dacer sisters pointed out.

State witness

“The filing of the complaint against Sen. Lacson would accelerate the reopening of the case,” Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez told reporters.

“We will move for him to be state witness and whatever fate of the case will be, he will still be discharged and we will work for his return to the US,” the Justice chief assured.

He also said the government is ready to fight any move to stop Mancao’s extradition.

He said they would oppose the petition of the lawyer of Aquino with the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark to stop the extradition of Mancao and Dumlao.

Dumlao dealt the Philippine prosecution a heavy blow when he managed to secure last March 16 an order to stay his extradition from Judge Thomas C. Platt of the Eastern District of New York in Central Islip in Long Island.

“We will fight this. Our objection will be channeled through the district attorney in the US,” Gonzalez told The STAR.

Aquino’s lawyer, Mark A. Berman, reportedly had asked Assistant US

Attorney Eric Todd Kanelfsky of New Jersey to delay the extradition of Mancao and Dumlao as he wanted them to stand as witnesses in the extradition case against Aquino pending before the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark.

Aquino’s extradition was originally filed with the Eastern District Court of North Carolina in Raleigh but Magistrate Judge William Webb of the Eastern District of North Carolina transferred his case to the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark “in the light of the defendant’s presence in the State of New Jersey.”

Aquino, Mancao and Dumlao fled the Philippines in 2001 after they were linked to the double murders.

Mancao’s lawyer, Arnedo Valera, earlier told The STAR that Mancao’s extradition would push through “barring any technicality or technicalities.”

In seeking the delay of the extradition of Mancao and Dumlao, Berman said “we see this as a continuation of a politically motivated prosecution, and we are going to fight extradition.”

Aquino is now being held at the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearney, New Jersey. He has been in jail since his arrest in 2005 for spying. He pleaded guilty on two counts of unauthorized possession and willful retention of two classified documents relating to national defense supplied to him by US Marine Leandro Aragoncillo, a Filipino-American, who once worked as an aide to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney.

Aquino was sentenced to 76 months but the US Court of Appeals ruled that the US District Court of New Jersey made a mistake in its interpretation the federal sentencing guidelines and ordered a resentencing. The resentencing is scheduled on March 31 in Newark.

Berman said he believes Aquino is eligible for immediate release. But he said he should stay in detention pending the resolution of his extradition case.

In its extradition charge against Aquino, the government accused the former police officer of “being a fugitive” and “sought his provisional arrest with a view towards extradition to answer a charge of murder.”

What harassment?

Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent Manuel Gaerlan, Bataan police director, denied Lacson’s accusation that his former driver Reynaldo Lopez Oximoso and his family are being harassed in the province.

Gaerlan told The STAR that he sees no reason why he should harass Oximoso, a retired non-commissioned police officer, “unless we confirm that he has a standing warrant of arrest for murder cases from the Court.”

“Definitely, we have done nothing yet against Oximoso or his immediate family and he can live a happy retired life as long as he does not violate any law,” Gaerlan.

“We haven’t seen him and I don’t know him personally,” the provincial police chief said.

Oximoso was reportedly the driver of the car where the conversation between Lacson and Aquino on the plot to kill Dacer took place. – With Raffy Viray