Michael Ray faces $60-M default judgment

CHICAGO – Former Philippine police officer Michael Ray Aquino may be levied $60 million in default judgment if lawyers of the children of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer can convince a district court that an Alien Tort Statute (ATS) is applicable to their damage claims. 

Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco could enter a default judgment against Aquino when jury trial of the claims starts on Monday, Oct. 7.

Legal counsels for Dacer’s heirs argue that the ATS, 28 U.S.C Sec. 1350 is applicable to their claims for $10-million compensatory and $50-million punitive damages for each of them against Aquino for the double murder of their father and their father’s driver, Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

In the order issued last Tuesday (Oct. 1), Judge Alsup also required Filipino American lawyer Rodel Rodis to “also address the issue of exhaustion of remedies under Section 2(b) of the Torture Victim Protection Act.”

Aquino was the only one who responded to the original $120-million damage suit filed by the Dacer children. Aquino’s co-defendants ignored, or refused or were not served the summonses.

The other defendants on the case are former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, former Philippine senator Panfilo Lacson, former Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. chief Reynato Tenorio, businessman Dante Tan, Aquino’s subordinates Glenn Dumlao and Vicente Arnado, who is believed hiding in the United States, and “DOES 1-100, inclusive.”

The complainants in the case are Carina Dacer, Sabina Dacer-Reyes, Amparo Dacer-Henson and Emily Dacer-Hungerford, mostly, if not all residing in the United States.

In his order, Judge Alsup told the Dacers’ lawyers that based on the Sept. 30 (2013) pretrial conference, “plaintiffs’ (complainants) forthcoming default judgment motion should address the issue of jurisdiction on the Alien Tort Claims (Statute) Act in light of Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 133 S. Ct. 1659 (2013).”

In a unanimous ruling this year, the US Supreme Court in Kiobel held, “The presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under ATS, and nothing in the statute rebuts that presumption.”