Will Dacer family ever get justice?

Two years and a day ago news jolted Bubby Dacer’s four daughters of his abduction in broad daylight. November 24, 2000 was to be the start of a long grief that only those who’ve lost a most beloved would understand. They’ve swung from denial, despair, then acceptance when investigators stumbled upon the burnt remains of Bubby and his driver Awel Corbito. They’ve tried to seek answers from lawyers, friends, even from psychics. Nothing can heal the pain. To this day, they have yet to get justice.

November 24, 2000 was a heady day for the country, too. The Senate had just started the first impeachment trial ever of a President, since a drinking buddy had rattled on Joseph Estrada’s jueteng payola and the House had hurdled a test of mettle in indicting him. Rallies were in full swing to make Estrada resign or else face the wrath of a nation fed up with the plundering to build mansions for mistresses. His own cronies were in disarray. Four Cabinet members had resigned as other aides were busing paid pickets to the trial. Gen. Panfilo Lacson, then-chief of the PNP and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, was preparing to fly to Washington, purportedly to present himself to whoever would care to listen as the best alternative to the tottering leader of a torn Republic.

Bubby and Awel were waylaid late morning of that day along busy South Expressway in Manila. The famous PR-man was rushing to office where ex-President Fidel Ramos was to see him. Rumors flew fast about why he was abducted. Was he carrying documents about stock market manipulation that involved Palace officials and friends? Did he stage his own kidnapping as the ultimate PR stunt? Yet the fact stood, as sworn by eyewitness, that three vans full of armed men had sandwiched Bubby’s car. Four alighted, forced their way into the car, then sped south towards Cavite. One of them was in police uniform.

Events unfolded fast. The PAOCTF grabbed the investigative lead. Lacson promised Ampi and Sabina Dacer to help find their dad. Estrada, puzzled about what could’ve happened, admitted that he had met with compadre Bubby only two nights before the abduction. The PNP joined the probe. Dacer’s car was found in Cavite, but with no trace of the victims. Chavit Singson, who had exposed the jueteng racket, accused the PAOCTF of the abduction and Lacson of masterminding it. But the year closed with no clear lead, only Bubby’s daughters praying with Cardinal Jaime Sin for a break in the investigation.

Weeks later a new government was in place. The NBI took over the case. Dir. Reynaldo Wycoco confirmed in February 2001 that seven PAOCTF operatives, newly reassigned to PNP Gen. Hermogenes Ebdane, were indeed linked to the disappearance. But the agents, claiming harassment, ignored orders to submit to interrogation. By March the list of PAOCTF suspects grew to 28. Only one, senior police officer Marino Soberano, was identified by an eyewitness, a cigarette street-seller.

On March 29, 2001, the NBI arrested drifters Jimmy Lopez and Alex Diloy, who led investigators to a creekside in Indang, Cavite, where they had lit a bonfire and roasted the hogtied but praying Bubby and Awel on the night of November 24. The two confessed that four PAOCTF agents were among ten men who took part in the killing. They didn’t know the reason or the mastermind, only that orders came from Col. Teofilo Viña, PAOCTF deputy for the Visayas.

The NBI charged Soberano and fellow-officers Jose Escalante and Mauro Torres with double murder. Same with Lopez, Diloy and nine other civilians from Cavite. Viña went into hiding.

On April 14, 2001, seven of the accused implicated Col. Michael Ray Aquino, Lacson’s right-hand man in the PAOCTF. Eleven gave additional details about Viña and three aides. The next day President Gloria Arroyo disbanded the PAOCTF. But the departing PAOCTF chief couldn’t account for Aquino, Viña and the other police officers.

Days later Lt. Col. Glenn Dumlao, of the disbanded elite force, sent surrender feelers. Officer Ruperto Aguilar Nemeno had pointed to him and Maj. Vicente Arnado as among the eight cops and two civilians who had executed the swift kidnapping before handing over the victims for the kill. Dumlao was feeling the heat. The justice department was also reviving the Kuratong Baleleng massacre case; three police officers had surfaced to attest that the May 1995 incident involving Estrada’s and Lacson’s Anti-Crime Commission was a rubout, not a shootout. Dumlao was at the scene that dawn on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City; he allegedly shot two detainees belatedly brought there from Camp Crame after eight kidnap suspects summarily were executed. More than that, he was part of the Nov. 24 kidnapping-murder.

On June 4, 2001, the PNP presented Dumlao to the press. He in turn linked Col. Cesar Mancao, PAOCTF second-in-command during Lacson’s time, to the Bubby-Awel case. On June 18 Dumlao signed an affidavit that Malacañang and Lacson may have known of the special operation to abduct and kill the two. Lacson, then newly-elected as senator, naturally cried harassment.

On July 17 probers summoned Mancao and Aquino for questioning. They ignored the order. As the PNP began dismissal hearings of the AWOL officers, news broke that the duo had fled to Canada using fake passports. The justice department filed an extradition plea. In October 2001 Lacson announced, from a phone chat with them, that Mancao and Aquino have no plan of returning. Only then did prosecutors include the two in the charge sheet.

Although 22 accused are in custody, the case has hardly moved for a year since. Still pending with the Court of Appeals is a petition for Dumlao to turn state witness.

"What now?" Carina Dacer cries from California, where dad used to visit for long summers of fun. How the sisters miss him: "For two years, behind the news, the headlines, all the speculation, (we) have tried ways and means to survive physically, emotionally, financially, mentally, socially - at times, desperately." They cannot live on with just memories of Bubby, as the driver’s family can’t of Awel. Justice must be served.

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Catch Linawin Natin, tonight at 11, on IBC-13.

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