Apparently not more than P1,500 for publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, according to one of the two men who admitted complicity in the brutal kidnap-murder.
Alexander Diloy, one of the 14 men charged in the double murder, revealed in his affidavit to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that he received P1,000 from his accomplices right after the killings on Nov. 24 and another P500 on Christmas Day.
"It may have been given as payment, who knows? But it’s not common for Diloy to be given money just like that," a member of the NBI National Capital Region told The STAR.
Diloy and cohort Jimmy Lopez admitted participating in the double murder after NBI operatives arrested them at their homes in Indang, Cavite on Wednesday.
Diloy and Lopez also tagged 12 other co-conspirators, including three police operatives of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) under then police Director General Panfilo Lacson.
Investigators, however, could not immediately ascertain if Diloy and his 13 other co-accused regularly received money for such special operations.
"In the case of Lopez, he mentioned nothing about receiving anything in his affidavit. Maybe he did, but did not mention it," the NBI agent said.
NBI-NCR head Samuel Ong admits that they purposely did not ask Diloy nor Lopez about their other "jobs" for fear it would muddle the case. "It’s difficult to ask them about other cases because it might scare them off. (They might decide) to just keep quiet about everything since they could be charged for the other crimes," Ong said.
Diloy and Lopez have already pointed to PAOCTF Visayas chief Senior Superintendent Teofilo Viña as the team leader of the PAOCTF agents involved in the double murder.
Viña has since failed to report back for work after the expiry of an emergency leave and is feared to have gone into hiding.
Dacer and Corbito were abducted by armed men at the intersection of South Superhighway and Zobel Roxas Street in Manila at around 8 a.m. of Nov. 24.
According to Diloy and Lopez, six PAOCTF agents later delivered the two victims to a garage owned by Jimmy’s brother William in the evening of Nov. 24.
Jimmy admitted that he gathered wood and discarded car tires for a pyre along a creek at Barangay Bona Lejos I in Indang, Cavite, an area residents tagged as a common site for summary executions.
After Jimmy gathered the wood and tires, the two bound and gagged victims were brought to the site at around 8 p.m.
William Lopez strangled Dacer with a length of wire while another suspect, Digo de Pedro, strangled Corbito and later doused the lifeless bodies with petrol and set them afire.
The suspects, including the police officers, stood by to make sure the fire had fully engulfed the bodies and then left one by one.
Both Diloy and Lopez led NBI operatives to the scene of the crime where they found charred bones and teeth which were subsequently turned over to NBI forensic experts for identification.
The justice department on Friday charged SPO4 Marino Soberano, SPO3 Jose Escalante, SPO3 Mauro Torres, Crisostomo Purificacion, Digo de Pedro, Renato and Jovencio Malabanan, William and Jimmy Lopez, Margarito Cueno, Alex Diloy and Rommel Rollan.
The NBI added, however, that it would likely charge Viña pending discovery of solid evidence against the police official.
The authorities have yet to establish the motive or mastermind of the gruesome crime. They invited no less than former Presidents Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, both friends and clients of Dacer, to reveal whatever information they may have.
Dacer was supposedly on his way to meet Ramos at the Manila Hotel when he was abducted while Estrada reportedly had a verbal tussle with Dacer a few days before his disappearance.
Sources from the intelligence community identified the officer as Senior Inspector Medel Poñe, assigned with the Cabanatuan City police, who was tagged as the alleged "chop-chop" man of a well-entrenched drug syndicate operating in the country.
Poñe had reportedly expressed willingness last week to turn state witness and began talks with an unidentified military official but the talks broke down after Poñe claimed his moves were being watched by other policemen linked with the syndicate.
Police said Poñe was a dropout of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) and later joined the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA). He joined the PNP in 1996 and was assigned to the unit of a police superintendent now assigned with the Central Luzon provincial police office.
According to former Hong Kong narcotics agent Mary Ong, alias "Rosebud," Poñe was responsible for the abduction and subsequent slaying of local and foreign ethnic Chinese who were all linked to a well-entrenched drug syndicate.
Rosebud identified Poñe’s victims as Calvin Wong (killed October 1998 at the Century Park hotel in Manila), Chiong Hiu Ming (abducted December 1998, killed May 1999), Wong Kam Chong (abducted March 1999, killed May 1999) and Chan Ka Tsong (abducted July 1999, killed August 1999).
Rosebud said Poñe was part of the drug syndicate’s "disposal" team. Drug syndicates, she said, usually operate surveillance, abduction and disposal teams.