EDITORIAL – Long wait for justice

If summary executions continue in this country, it is because people with a propensity to commit murder know they can get away with it. From the arrest of suspects to prosecution and conviction, the wait for justice is interminably long.

This is true in the case of Carina Dacer, daughter of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer whose charred remains were unearthed in Cavite in 2001 together with those of his driver Emmanuel Corbito.

Yesterday marked the fifth year since Dacer and Corbito were waylaid in Manila by armed men. The two were never seen again by their loved ones. After EDSA II, the charred remains were found, suspects were arrested and the story of the gruesome deaths emerged, with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force of the Estrada administration implicated in the twin murders.

Not even a change of administration, however, could guarantee justice. The highest police officials implicated in the case, Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao, left the country before another police officer could turn state witness and include them in the charge sheet. Aquino is currently detained in the United States on espionage charges; if convicted and imprisoned, it could take up to 15 years before he is extradited to the Philippines. Mancao is believed to be in Canada or the US as well.

As Carina Dacer recounted on her father’s death anniversary, the victims were tortured for several days and strangled before being burned to death. Despite the involvement of members of the PAOCTF, an elite police unit headed by Panfilo Lacson that was disbanded after EDSA II, no motive has been determined for the murders and no mastermind identified.

Carina, who is battling breast cancer, remains hopeful that her family will still see justice. But the frustration with the criminal justice system shows. Five years after a celebrated double murder, investigators are still unable to declare the case closed.