Dacer family 'extremely disappointed' over ruling

MANILA, Philippines - The daughters of slain publicist Salvador Dacer are “deeply saddened and extremely disappointed” by the Court of Appeal (CA)’s exoneration of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the alleged mastermind in the murders of their father and his driver more than a decade ago.

“We will work with our lawyers to study other legal remedies that we have and we will proceed from there,” a statement from the Dacer sisters read as they vowed to contest the CA ruling issued last Thursday.

MANILA, Philippines - Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito were snatched at gunpoint in broad daylight on Osmeña Highway in November 2000. Their charred remains were later found in Cavite.

“I was in communication with Carina Dacer only now. Needless to say, the Dacer family, to use her words, is extremely disappointed with the ruling of the Court of Appeals,” lawyer Demetrio Custodio, representing the Dacer family, said in a press briefing.

Custodio said they are now considering two legal remedies – the filing of a motion for reconsideration or “go to the Supreme Court (SC) on a direct action citing abuse on the part of the Court of Appeals.”

He also said the arrest order issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court against Lacson is still in effect.

“The warrant of arrest was issued by the regional trial court and in obvious recognition of the validity of the warrant of arrest, Sen. Lacson went into hiding knowing that the warrant of arrest will be effected or will be served,” Custodio said.

“Insofar as I am concerned, because the Resolution of the Court of Appeals has not yet attained finality, which is to say that you can still question it and the possibility of it being reversed is still there, it cannot yet be implemented,” he said.

“Until and unless it attains finality, and by that we mean all the way up to the Supreme Court, that Resolution will simply just be a Resolution and will have no effect as far as the warrant of arrest is concerned,” he stressed.

Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) founding chairman Dante Jimenez said Lacson should be man enough to “face the music.”

Custodio said the CA may have committed a mistake because it was supposed to rule only on probable cause and not on the entire case.

If the Dacer family would opt to go directly to the SC to question the ruling, he said the action would be on “whether or not it was correct for the CA to appreciate the testimony of Mr. Mancao and brand it as incredible.” He was referring to former police officer Cesar Mancao, the principal witness against Lacson.

Another prosecution lawyer Ferdinand Topacio also said Lacson is not yet off the hook because the CA ruling is not yet final and executory.

He stressed that the credibility of witnesses and the weight of evidence are determined during trial and not through papers or documents submitted to the CA.

Topacio said Mancao was not even given the chance to explain the supposed discrepancies or inconsistencies in his two affidavits.

“What’s so funny is that the CA has cleared someone who has never appeared in court because he is in hiding,” Topacio said referring to the fugitive senator.

He said the CA, in deciding Lacson’s claim that there was grave abuse of discretion on the part of the Manila RTC which issued the arrest warrant, “itself committed grave abuse of discretion” by junking the finding of probable cause by two Department of Justice secretaries and two lower court judges.

Topacio called the ruling “katakataka” (incredible), saying it was very rare for findings of probable cause to be reversed considering the presence of testimonial evidence and physical evidence against the accused.

Topacio also accused Malacañang of coddling Lacson, judging from its lack of effort to locate the senator.

“It’s just that Sen. Lacson belongs to the privileged few who, in trying to seek exoneration, does not want to be incarcerated and does not want to honor the processes of law by submitting himself to the jurisdiction of the court,” said Topacio.

He said the Aquino government has been offering rewards left and right for the capture of people like those who bombed a bus on EDSA but not for Lacson.

Topacio said the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government even declared that “the police do not need a reward to do their jobs” in the case of Lacson.

“What’s the proof that Malacañang is coddling Lacson? There is no offer of reward for his capture, but for the rest there is,” he said.

Topacio said President Aquino even guaranteed the senator a fair trial when there is no need to because everybody is supposed to be entitled to a fair trial.

“Here you can see the distortion of our sense of values. There are many faces of the law in the Aquino administration,” he said.

“There is a benign and benevolent face for those allied with the government – they are given amnesty. But there is cruel face for its foes,” he said.

“The very agencies that are supposed to care for the people are bending over backwards to accommodate those who are influential and powerful,” Topacio said.

Setback

“The news was a setback to all our efforts to seek justice for the brutal murders of our father and Awel Corbito. We will work with our lawyers to study other legal remedies that we have and we will proceed from there,” Carina Dacer said.

“I know a lot of people want to ask questions about how we feel and I apologize to all those who have called and emailed asking for our reaction that we have not responded to,” Carina, who is in New York, added.

“After more than 10 years of seeking justice, our case is no longer a murder case which has affected only our family, the family of Awel Corbito, the families of the men still in jail and the families of everyone who has been involved in its resolution. Our father’s and Awel’s deaths and our fight to continue to find justice show the sorry state of crime and punishment in the Philippines and the unchanged pace of the wheels of justice in the country,” she said.

But she said that they are hopeful “that one day, somewhere, justice will still be served.”

The other Dacer daughters are Sabina Dacer-Reyes, Amparo Dacer-Henson and Emily Dacer-Hungerford. With Sandy Araneta