Escape from NBI: How Mancao did it

MANILA, Philippines - Fugitive former police senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II used his own key to unlock the door of his detention cell. Then he walked calmly out of the building and scaled a fence.

Footage from a security camera showed Mancao leaving his cell at 1:14 a.m. Thursday, two days after the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) ordered his transfer to the Manila City Jail.

Wearing a white t-shirt and a bull cap, and carrying a black bag with his personal belongings, Mancao almost stumbled in front of a white sport utility vehicle before disappearing from the range of the security camera.

Mancao told The STAR that his two guards were not involved in his escape, insisting he managed to give them the slip – “Naisahan ko sila.”

“I’m sad for the two guards who are now being charged by the NBI,” Mancao told The STAR in a phone interview. “No one helped me escape. I did it on my own and I am the only one responsible for what I did.”

NBI guards Pablo Remalante and Ibrahim Musa are under investigation on suspicion that they gave Mancao the key to his detention cell.

Remalante and Musa were charged yesterday with infidelity in the custody of a prisoner under Article 233 of the Revised Penal Code aside from administrative charges.

Investigators initially suspected Mancao could have boarded a vehicle waiting along the pathway leading directly to a gas station and parking area behind the NBI main office and passed the security at the main gate along Taft Avenue.

Mancao said he was left with no choice but to escape when he learned that he would be moved to the Manila City Jail. He said this would put his life in jeopardy.

He is among those charged for the kidnapping and murder of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000.

Mancao wants to become a state witness, but this was turned down by Manila RTC Branch 18 Judge Carolina Icasiano-Sison. The judge ordered Mancao and the other defendants to be detained at the Manila City Jail.

“It will only cost my enemies P50,000 or maybe less to kill me. I won’t take it sitting down. My petition to be a state witness is still being heard, but why are they such in a hurry to take me out of the NBI where I am safer and put me closer to the people who want me dead?” Mancao said.

Mancao has expressed suspicion that Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who was also implicated but later cleared in the Dacer-Corbito killings, wanted him dead.

Lacson headed the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Anti-Organized Task Force (PAOCTF) when its members allegedly waylaid Dacer and Corbito at the boundary of Manila and Makati in November 2000. Their charred remains were found in a shallow grave in Cavite several months later. They were identified through dental records.

Civilian accomplices identified the police personnel allegedly involved, all of them members of the PAOCTF.

Officials said the court’s commitment order was issued on April 30 and received by NBI Security Management Division chief Rodrigo Mapoy in the afternoon.

Mapoy said Mancao’s commitment was deferred to Thursday morning because May 1 was a holiday.