‘We thought it was a legitimate operation’

Police officers now detained for a double murder claimed yesterday that they were "blinded" by their superiors in carrying out a highly compartmentalized operation.

Two officers of the recently disbanded Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) said their superiors misled them into believing that the abduction and summary execution of public relations practitioner Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito was a lawful mission.

"They made us believe that the operations were legitimate," one of the officers said.

Inspector Bobby Lancaoan and SPO4 Marino Soberano made this admission and tagged Superintendent Glenn Dumlao and Chief Inspector Vicente Amado as their immediate superiors who gave them specific instructions regarding the Dacer operations.

Inquiries conducted by the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) showed that Dumlao was part of the abduction team that snatched Dacer and Corbito on Nov. 24 last year at the intersection of Sergio Osmeña Avenue and Zobel Roxas street near the Manila-Makati City boundary.

Dumlao later turned over their captives to Amado at the back of the of the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. building branch in Dasmariñas town in Cavite with specific instructions to kill their quarry.

"They deceived us. We thought the operations were legitimate. I have sacrificed my life and my family but they deceived us," cried Soberano as he confided to Justice Secretary Hernando Perez after they were presented to the media at Camp Crame yesterday.

Soberano also expressed fears for his life and that of his family, saying the real culprits would go after them after the charges have been filed before the courts.

Soberano was allegedly part of a team that transported Dacer and Corbito to a shop owned by William Lopez in Barangay Bona Lejos in Indang, where the victims were subsequently strangled to death and cremated in a makeshift pyre.

For his part, Lancaoan appealed to top PNP officials for help in the case. "We thought we will just arrest some criminals. They blinded us in this operations. Everything seems compartmentalized," he told the police probers.

Soberano and Lancaoan, along with two of their comrades in the PAOCTF and four civilian agents who were implicated in the case, were presented to the media at Camp Crame by PNP chief Director General Leandro Mendoza, Perez and National Bureau of Investigation Director Reynaldo Wycoco.

The eight suspects corroborated earlier testimonies given by Alex Diloy and Jimmy Lopez, two farmers from Indang who admitted their part in the twin slayings.

SPO3 Jose Escalante, who was part of the abduction team, recalled having seen the victims inside one of three vans they used in going to Cavite.

"Their mouths and eyes were covered with tapes. Their hands were tied behind their backs," he narrated.

Escalante also said he and other members of their team were shocked to learn later that the persons they had killed were Dacer and Corbito.

Suspect William Lopez, who gave himself up to Wycoco yesterday morning, also confirmed that the PAOCTF agents brought Dacer and Corbito to his garage at about 5 p.m. on Nov. 24.

Lopez said the victims were later brought out to a secluded spot where they were strangled to death with lengths of electric cord.

Lawyer Samuel Ong of the NBI said Lopez may be recommended for inclusion in the government’s Witness Protection Program.

Meanwhile, Director Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., PNP deputy chief for administration and former head of the PAOCTF, vowed to go after members of the task force who gave the unit its bad reputation.

"To those who have given the PAOCTF and the profession a bad name, we will not rest until justice is done," Ebdane said.

He led the removal of all PAOCTF signages at the task force’s office in Camp Crame.

Ebdane led some 40 PAOCTF personnel in marching out of the unit’s headquarters before tearing down the signages as the task force officially bows out of existence.

"We salute the President for her decision (to abolish the PAOCTF)," Ebdane said, adding that the task force’s tarnished reputation had overshadowed its substantial accomplishments. — Christina Mendez, Mike Frialde, Marichu Villanueva