Drum with body found… two years early

Is it a case of the police having one drum too many?

Reports that a local resident has retrieved a drum containing human skeletal remains from a silted river in Lubao, Pampanga raised more questions than answers pertaining to the case of missing casino employee Edgar Bentain.

If it were the remains of Bentain who went missing after stepping out of the Grand Boulevard (formerly Silahis) Hotel in Pasay City on Jan. 16, 1999, how come the Lubao police report stated that the drum was discovered on Christmas Eve of 1997, or two years before Bentain disappeared?

In a worst-case scenario, did murderers turn the lahar-filled river cutting across several times in Pampanga into a dumping ground for their victims?

Anyway, the police and the military intelligence community said they would dig deeper to solve the two-year-old Bentain case. That includes having the drum found by the Lubao man identified only as Patrick, a former employee of a Velasquez Funeral Homes, in a lahar area in Barangay Remedios four years ago dug up anew.

NBI-Pampanga chief Orlando Dizon said Patrick reburied the drum after reporting his finding to the Lubao police.

"Although there is a strong possibility that the body said to be found in Lubao is not that of Bentain, we are still checking it as there could be errors in the police report, especially with the placing of the date," Dizon said.

He added they were closely coordinating with the owners of the Velasquez Funeral Homes in looking for Patrick whom they wanted to question further about the drum, particularly on the place where he buried the drum for possible exhumation and autopsy of the remains.

Dizon said the Bentain family could also ask the NBI to perform forensic tests on the remains to determine if they were Bentain’s. Angelo "Ador" Mawanay, who claimed he was a civilian agent of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), alleged that operatives of the elite unit led by Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino abducted Bentain, took the victim to Pampanga where he was placed inside a drum which was later filled with concrete mixture.

Mawanay said the drum was later covered with a second drum, sealed and then dumped through a hole of the megadike in Cabantian, Lubao.

Mawanay said Bentain was eliminated by the PAOCTF for passing to former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office Chairman Manuel Morato, a video footage from the Heritage Hotel casino’s closed-circuit television showing then presidential candidate Joseph Estrada playing high stakes baccarat with suspected gambling lord Charlie "Atong" Ang and Butch Tenorio.

Meanwhile, a team from the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) temporarily called off their search for the Bentain drum as the lahar-laden Pasig-Potrero River swelled due to heavy rains.

Bacolor Mayor Romeo Dungca said the riverbed has also become too soft for the payloader and the backhoe being used by the searchers.

Dungca also said the ISAFP team has sought the help of Pampanga Gov. Lito Lapid for a bigger backhoe to speed up their operations which were launched last week.

A local resident has told the ISAFP agents that she and her husband saw a drum inside a deep hole on the megadike sometime in 1999.

The witness said they abandoned plans to recover the drum because it was too heavy.

Former Integrated Bar of the Philippines president Leonardo de Vera, a leader of the Justice for Edgar Bentain Movement, underscored the significance of finding the Bentain drum as revealed by Mawanay.

"The drum is essential to the case. There is now a race to find that drum which will validate all that were said by Ador, including the hit list," De Vera said.

He added they will ask the ISAFP to secure technical assistance and sophisticated metal detectors from Japan and South Korea to facilitate the search for the Bentain drum.

To enlist the help of civilian volunteers for the search, Lubao authorities were mulling asking the ISAFP to raise a cash reward for anyone who may find the drum.