EDITORIAL - Permanently silenced

The accused executioner was shot dead in Tanza, Cavite in January 2003. Police Superintendent Teofilo Viña was head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force-Visayas when he allegedly led the team that kidnapped, tortured and executed publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in the final days of Joseph Estrada’s administration.

Early yesterday a key witness in the twin murders, former barangay captain Jimmy Lopez, was also gunned down together with a female companion in his house in Indang, Cavite. The gunmen fled on a motorcycle. Lopez, his brother William and another Cavite resident, Alex Diloy, testified that PAOCTF members led by Viña had brought Dacer and Corbito to Cavite on Nov. 24, 2000, hours after the victims were waylaid in Manila on their way to Dacer’s office at the Manila Hotel. William Lopez, SPO3 Mauro Torres and an Indang councilor strangled Dacer and Corbito to death with an electric cord, the three witnesses testified. The bodies were later burned and the remains buried in a shallow grave.

Though Jimmy Lopez had already testified in court, his murder should alert authorities about the need to protect the other witnesses in this case, notably former PAOCTF officers Cezar Mancao and Glenn Dumlao. Lopez was a witness in the actual murders and disposal of the bodies. Viña was expected to identify the mastermind in the twin murders before he was gunned down. Mancao and Dumlao are also providing testimony that could lead to the brains behind the grisly murders, establish the motive and finally give justice to the victims’ families. The witnesses and their loved ones must be protected by the state.

The murders of Lopez and his companion could have nothing to do with the Dacer-Corbito case. But the only way to find out is by finding their killers. Authorities must also see to it that there will be no more witnesses in Dacer’s execution who will be permanently silenced.