Lacson not interested; denies participation
by Norman Bordadora, Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer
The daughters of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer will accept Sen. Panfilo Lacson as a state witness if he provides information identifying the mastermind of the abduction and murder of the publicist and his driver in November 2000.
This was disclosed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer by Demetrio Custodio, the lawyer of Dacer’s daughters, who filed a murder complaint against Lacson after former Senior Supt. Cezar Mancao’s earlier testimony that he had heard the then Philippine National Police chief issue the order to kill Dacer.
“We are willing to accept any witness who will lead us to the killer. If it’s [Lacson], it would be okay,” Custodio said. “We are hoping that he can provide us usable information. The last time [he took the Senate floor], it wasn’t quite definite.”
But Lacson is not interested.
Told by the Inquirer on the phone that the Dacer daughters were open to the possibility of his becoming a witness for the prosecution, the senator said: “How can I qualify as a state witness \when I did not have any participation or involvement in the disappearance of Dacer and [Emmanuel] Corbito?
“A state witness is one who is not the most guilty among the accused, and whose testimony is relevant and material to the successful prosecution of the case. I am neither of the two.”
In a privilege speech on Monday, Lacson suggested that deposed President Joseph Estrada had something to do with the twin murders.
He is to deliver another privilege speech next week.
Only after mastermind
“If [Lacson] can pin down the real mastermind, then we can use him as witness,” Custodio told reporters at the Department of Justice, where the preliminary investigation of the senator is ongoing.
“We are not persecuting anyone. We are after the mastermind of the crime,” the lawyer said.
Carina Dacer and her three sisters have asked the court to be given more time to file an amended complaint that would include Estrada as a respondent.
They filed the motion after Mancao—testifying at a hearing on his wish to be discharged as an accused and made a state witness—told the panel of prosecutors that Estrada was one of those who might know something about the Dacer-Corbito murders.
The panel, chaired by Senior State Prosecutor Peter Ong, Friday approved the Dacers’ motion, saying it was the prerogative of the complainants to amend their information.
The amended complaint will be referred to Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera and Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, who will determine whether it should be heard in the preliminary investigation of Lacson or in a separate proceeding, according to Ong.
On the other hand, Mancao’s lawyer Ferdinand Topacio has stated that direct evidence from his client pointed only to Lacson’s involvement in the twin murders.
On Wednesday, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada cited Topacio’s statement as the purported reason behind Lacson’s accusations against his father, the ousted President.
“In my honest opinion, as a lawyer and based on the evidence so far adduced in court by my client, Cezar Mancao, the only direct evidence with respect to the mastermind in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case pertains to … Lacson,” Senator Estrada quoted Topacio as saying.
He said Lacson wanted to paint his father as a criminal capable of ordering someone killed.
New witness
A woman who claimed to have seen then PNP chief Lacson and Bubby Dacer arguing in Batangas days before the publicist was killed is the Dacer family’s next witness against the senator, according to Custodio.
The woman, Lymith Bagual, has submitted a statement narrating how she saw Lacson and Dacer having a heated exchange at a resort.
“It’s circumstantial evidence,” Custodio said, adding that the woman would be presented to the Department of Justice panel at the next hearing scheduled on Sept. 28.
Asked to comment, Lacson said: “The planned presentation of a supposed new witness to testify against me, as announced by Attorney Custodio, is their ploy to convince me to agree to their suggestion to turn state witness.”
He described the ploy as “too elementary, if not idiotic.”
“Anyway, they should rethink their position to present that false witness who, they say, claims to have seen me and Mr. Dacer arguing in a beach in Batangas one week before Dacer disappeared,” Lacson said.
He added: “First, I don’t remember having gone to a beach in Batangas in my entire life. I hate beaches. Second, and more incredibly, I would not have spent time in a beach with Mr. Dacer as we were hardly close to each other.”
Slowly but surely
Lacson said other recent revelations in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case were “slowly but surely unmasking administration attempts to use the case to persecute” him.
He voiced hope that the DoJ would “wake up and realize” that the preliminary investigation it was pursuing against him was “irrelevant.”
“I now believe the saying ‘the truth shall set us free.’ It is becoming clear the efforts to link me to the case stemmed from Malacañang, through then Presidential Security Group (PSG) chief Romeo Prestoza,” he said.
On Thursday, Mancao testified that Prestoza, then a colonel heading the PSG, had made him an offer in exchange for making fabricated statements against Lacson.
Mancao said that in September 2007 when he was still in the United States, a man claiming to be Prestoza phoned him and offered him money, relocation in Singapore, and education support for his children, all in exchange for false statements against Lacson.
He said he refused the offers.
‘Sleep soundly, sir’
Lacson said he received a text message from Mancao in January 2008 narrating Prestoza’s offer.
He said Mancao even told him: “Sleep soundly, sir.”
Also earlier this week, former Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao said in an interview with ABS-CBN that ousted President Estrada was behind the twin murders.
Said Lacson: “This administration is using all foul and underhanded tactics to silence me for exposing its sins. But they failed to stop me then, and they will not stop me now. I will continue to investigate the sins that [the First Family] has committed against the nation.”
No knowledge
In Malacañang, Undersecretary Lorelei Fajardo Friday disclaimed knowledge of Mancao’s claim that he was made an offer by the PSG chief in 2007 to issue false statements against Lacson.
“We have no knowledge about it,” Fajardo, a spokesperson of Ms Arroyo, curtly said at a briefing. She referred reporters to now Major General Prestoza. With a report from TJ Burgonio
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