Wife fears for Mancao’s safety

CHICAGO – The wife of former police senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II on Friday expressed fear for the safety of her husband, whom she said had returned to the Philippines to tell the truth.

“Now, it (Philippine government) has abandoned him and discredited him. (The) government is duty-bound to keep him safe,” Maricar Mancao said in her statement to her US-based lawyer Arnedo Valera.

Valera quoted Maricar as saying that her husband refused to be transferred to the Manila City Jail (MCJ) for fear for his life and  that he was out of the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after the government dropped him as state witness in the murder of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.

Valera, of Fairfax, Virginia, is appealing to President Aquino to protect Mancao and let the process of truth and justice take its course.

Mancao, 51, escaped from the NBI detention cell last Thursday after learning of his supposed transfer to the MCJ. He was placed under arrest after the Court of Appeals (CA) ruled that he was not a credible witness.

He testified that his former superior, then police general now senator Panfilo Lacson, had ordered his fellow officer Michael Ray Aquino to conduct surveillance operation on Dacer supposedly over a falling out with then president Joseph Estrada.

Aquino’s subordinates allegedly kidnapped Dacer and Corbito at the boundary of Manila and Makati in November 2000 and took them to Cavite where they were eventually killed.

Shortly after the murder, Mancao, Aquino and former police superintendent Glenn Dumlao left for Hong Kong and the US to avoid the charges.

In 2010, Mancao returned to the Philippines to stand as state witness in the case. He implicated Estrada and tagged Lacson as the mastermind of the Dacer-Corbito murder.

Mancao, Aquino and Dumlao were charged with murder. But Aquino and Dumlao were later discharged from the case and have since remained free.

Based on Mancao’s testimony, a complaint was filed against Lacson who went into hiding after a warrant for his arrest was issued.

Lacson reappeared when the warrant was lifted after the CA dismissed the charges against him.