Don’t forget Edgar Bentain

Long before Salvador "Bubby" Dacer disappeared, there was Edgar Bentain. Remember the 36-year-old former video technician of the Phi-lippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.? On Jan. 16, 1999, just six months into the Estrada administration, Bentain left the Casino Filipino at the Grand Boulevard Hotel in Manila. He has not been heard from since.

What made this case special was that Manuel Morato, former chairman of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, identified Bentain as the man who gave him a video clip of then Vice President Joseph Estrada. The footage, taken on Sept. 15, 1996 at the VIP pit of the Heritage Hotel casino, showed Estrada playing high-stakes baccarat with his friend Charlie "Atong" Ang and Butch Tenorio, at the time the casino’s general manager.

Morato released the video footage before the May 1998 elections in an effort to discredit Estrada, who was topping all the surveys. A little over six months after Estrada’s victory, Bentain disappeared. His father Eduardo, chief of the police force at the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, sought help from Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, whose stories of corruption led to Estrada’s downfall. If Singson knows something about Bentain’s case, he’s likely to talk – if asked by authorities.

The question is whether authorities are still interested. The new leaderships in the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation have vowed to delve deeper into the disappearance of Dacer. New probes have also started on the bombings that rocked Metro Manila last Dec. 30 and shopping malls earlier in the year. What about the disappearance of Bentain? Wouldn’t Butch Tenorio and other PAGCOR officials know anything about it?

With Estrada out of power, the nation has an opportunity to learn the truth about the mysteries that occurred during his administration. One of the earliest was Bentain’s case. Law enforcement authorities should reopen their investigation of this disappearance. Even if Bentain is not found, his family deserves to know what happened to him, and who was responsible for it.