Erap may be included in Dacer probe - DOJ

MANILA, Philippines -  Former President Joseph Estrada will be summoned to the new investigation on the 2000 murders of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito if evidence points to him as the “Bigote” implicated in the testimony of former police senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II.

Speaking to reporters, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said yesterday the decision to summon Estrada would depend on the testimonies of Mancao and others accused in the murders, including former police superintendent Glenn Dumlao and former senior superintendent Michael Ray Aquino. 

“If that reference to the former president as the alleged ‘Bigote’ (moustache) again crops up in the statements, then so be it – he will be included (in the reinvestigation),” she said.

“I am giving them a chance to really come clean. It’s either they would affirm their original statements, modify if warranted or completely change them.”

De Lima said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Philippine National Police (PNP) will start the new investigation immediately upon the return of Aquino, who is to be extradited early next month from the US.

“We will go back to the incident,” she said. “It’s going to be a factual gathering of evidence, reassessment of old ones and gathering of new ones.” 

De Lima said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, whom Mancao had identified as the alleged mastermind in the murders until the Court of Appeals cleared him last February, would still be invited in the reinvestigation.

The NBI would have a credible reinvestigation even if director Magtanggol Gatdula was a former subordinate of Lacson in the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, she added.

De Lima said the identity of “Bigote,” whom key personalities involved in the case had tagged as the mastermind of the murders, would be among the possible leads the DOJ could pursue. “The nagging question which the public has been asking and waiting for all these over 10 years is who ordered the abduction and killing of Dacer and Corbito,” she said. “Nobody will believe if we say only those three were behind it. Somebody else higher than them ordered it, and that is what I am targeting.”

Mancao, Aquino and Dumlao were consistent on this detail, although their affidavits clashed on Lacson’s purported involvement in the case, she added.

Mancao had testified in court that operation Delta (kill Dacer) was ordered because “Bigote” was already irked with Dacer.

Lacson, PNP chief when the crime was committed, gave the order to “get rid” of Dacer and that he was “directly getting orders from Malacañang” he told the court.

The daughters of Dacer signed an affidavit in October 2009 before consul generals in New York and California implicating Estrada as “Bigote.”

They were supposed to file a criminal complaint against Estrada but called it off at the last minute. 

Demetrio Custodio Jr., the Dacers’ lawyer, said they believe only Lacson could identify the real mastermind.

In September last year, Dacer sisters Carina, Sabina, Emily and Amparo had filed a $50-million civil suit with the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco for compensatory and punitive damages for the cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, torture and extra-judicial killing of their father.

Through lawyers Rodel Rodis and Felix Antero, they sought $10 million in principal compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages.

They named Estrada, Lacson, businessman Dante Tan, former Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) president Reynaldo Tenorio and Aquino, Dumlao and former police officer Vicente Arnado as respondents in the suit.

Tenorio headed the government-owned corporation engaged in casino operations during Estrada’s two-and-a-half-year term, while Tan was main player in the Best World Resources stock manipulation scandal and owner of Best World Gaming and Entertainment Corp., which was given the sole authority by Pagcor to conduct nationwide computerized online bingo gaming.

His daughters cited as basis for their complaint the information that Dacer had threatened to expose Estrada’s involvement in insider stock trading.

Estrada had vehemently denied involved in the murders.

On Nov. 24, 2000, Dacer and Corbito were snatched at the corner of Zobel Roxas Street and South Super Highway at the boundary of Manila and Makati. They were subsequently brought to Indang, Cavite where they were killed and their bodies burned.