Justice, not politics, to close Dacer case

Justice has remained elusive for the family of slain public relations man, Salvador “Bubby” Dacer. The gruesome kidnapping and murder of Dacer, along with his driver Emmanuel Corbito, continue to hound the Filipino nation like the many other high-profile crimes in our country that were archived as unsolved. But in this particular Dacer-Corbito double murder case, it is now again dusted off and brought out in the limelight following reported new breaks in the case.

The reported new leads that would supposedly put a closure to this eight-year old case, however, are apparently based on different versions of affidavits executed by two of the several former police officials implicated in this heinous crime. Former Police Senior Superintendents Cesar Mancao and Glenn Dumlao who are both facing extradition proceedings in the US, have purportedly came up with their respective affidavits about what they knew on the Dacer-Corbito case and sparked renewed interest on who was, or who were behind the killings.

Mancao and Dumlao were two of the most trusted deputies then of former Philippine National Police director-general and now Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. The two, along with fellow Police Col. Michael Ray Aquino, were all detailed at the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) concurrently headed by Lacson as PNP chief during the administration of former President Joseph Estrada.

Mancao, Aquino and Dumlao were the highest-ranking police officials facing charges in the Dacer-Corbito double murder before the Manila Regional Trial Court. From the records of this case in the court, it has been established that PAOCTF men were behind the abduction and killing of Dacer and Corbito sometime in November 2000 somewhere in Lacson’s home province in Cavite.

I have personally witnessed how close Bubby was with Estrada in his travels here and abroad where he accompanied the former President before he was kidnapped and later killed. Actually, I first came to know Bubby as a nodding acquaintance while I was still covering Malacañang Palace during the term of former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1992. But it was not until later that I came to know Bubby at a more personal level. All that time that we saw each other at the Palace, I did not have an inkling that he was a very close family friend.

It was only after my mother saw a photo of Bubby with us, a group of journalists whom he invited to an official visit to Taiwan in 1994 that I came to know our filial connection. My Mom told me that Bubby was a wedding godson of my maternal late grandfather, Gaspar Anduiza. Bubby was so ecstatic to learn about this and confirmed that we were actually related with each other by affinity. So every time I would bump into Bubby in some of the presidential coverage in and out of the Palace, he would always tell anyone who would care to listen about our being related to each other.

But what have renewed high public interest in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case were the reported breakthroughs that would finally pin down the masterminds or the brains behind it. Obviously being set up for the kill, so to speak, are Lacson and Estrada. It all started when the private lawyer of the Dacer family announced the latest offer reportedly made by Mancao to shed light on who gave the order to kill Dacer. Mancao allegedly sealed this offer in an affidavit he signed on Feb.14 during the extradition hearing in the US court against him.

This affidavit of Mancao was the latest he issued after two previous affidavits with different versions of what he knew about the case. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez disclosed he has two of these affidavits of Mancao. A copy of the latest Mancao affidavit was the subject of an exclusive story by Pilipino Star Ngayon/Pang Masa (PM) columnist Tony Calvento that was first headlined at The Philippine STAR on March 16. A week later, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published an article on Mancao’s purported Feb. 14 affidavit.

Both newspapers quoted from the same Mancao’s affidavit where he alleged he was present when fellow former Police Col. Michael Ray Aquino told Lacson: “Tatapusin muna namin si Delta, Sir, kasi naiirita na si Bigote sa kanya.” Delta was a code name for Dacer and “Sir” was Lacson. But how the same Mancao affidavit was treated in the respective headline stories by The STAR and the Inquirer was a big issue extensively taken up by Daily Tribune publisher and editor-in-chief Niñez Cacho-Olivarez, both in news, in her column, and editorial page Saturday. The following are excerpts from the Tribune headline story over the weekend “Erap: Dacer slay link related to 2010 polls:”

“The Inquirer banner yesterday linked Estrada and Sen. Panfilo Lacson to the double murder of Dacer and Corbito on the basis of the affidavit of Mancao.

In the case of Estrada, however, the newspaper directly tied the former leader to the slay case on account of a hearsay conversation wherein Aquino, a close aide of Lacson, claimed that “Bigote” alluding to the alleged code name of Estrada, “was already getting irked.”

There was hardly anything said to directly link Estrada to the slay case in the Mancao testimony, but the newspaper directly linked the former leader to the murder through its banner headline.

It is noted that the Inquirer reported that the copy of the affidavit was leaked by an Arroyo official, evidently for the government to prominently link Estrada to the slay case, since The Philippine STAR report by columnist Tony Calvento had already carried the same report based on the Mancao affidavit, only that The STAR did not have the slant on Estrada since there was no basis to do so, from the same Mancao testimony, as The STAR banner headline then said Lacson ordered the hit on Dacer.”

Bubby was no saint during his lifetime but he was a God-fearing man. But to use his murder case to kill some people’s political plans would certainly not serve the ends of justice that the Dacer family earnestly seeks.

The puzzle of this celebrated double murder case does not end here. It appears that more of the missing pieces of the puzzle will come out in installment. But I’m afraid the family’s search for justice in the killing of Dacer is unnecessarily being taken advantage of by some parties trying to squeeze political blood out of it.