Where’s Dante Tan? Lina wants to know

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. instructed the Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday to pinpoint the whereabouts of controversial businessman Dante Tan.

"If it will be established that Tan is indeed missing, then it will become a police matter that must be acted upon," Lina said.

The Bureau of Immigration has no record of Tan leaving the country nor is his name in the manifest of any aircraft that has departed from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport or any other airport in the country in the past few days.

Tan reportedly went missing after two suspects in the murder of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito were arrested last Wednesday.

Tan’s lawyer Agnes Maranan told The STAR last Monday that she had not heard from her client since last weekend.

Lina said police still have no leads on Tan’s whereabouts as his family has refused to talk to investigators, and that nobody knows whether he has left the country or not.

Sources in the Filipino-Chinese community said Tan’s wife Tessie and their children have also been missing since early March.

There were reports that Dacer had in his possession explosive documents on the Best World Resources stock trading scandal when he was waylaid on his way to a meeting with former President Fidel Ramos at the Manila Hotel.

Dacer and his driver disappeared on Nov. 24, two days after he met then President Joseph Estrada at Ma-lacañang. Tan, who heads BW, was said to have been present at the meeting. Estrada has denied the story.

Lina said police must first determine what really happened to Dacer and Corbito before they can start digging up the case of Tan. – Perseus Echeminada, Rey Arquiza