EDITORIAL – Waiting for justice

Five years after publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito were murdered, the rickety wheels of justice are finally moving. The Supreme Court, in a ruling handed down the other day, allowed one of the police officers implicated in the case to turn state witness against several of his former police colleagues.

Superintendent Glen Dumlao has implicated former police officers Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao in the gruesome murders. Dumlao wanted to be dropped from the list of accused and be allowed to turn state witness against his former fellow officers. The Court of Appeals turned down his petition but the Supreme Court overturned the CA ruling. The wait for a final ruling has been so interminable that reports yesterday said Dumlao might have already left the country.

Dacer, publicist of former President Fidel Ramos, was being driven to work by Corbito on Nov. 24, 2000 when they were waylaid by armed men in San Andres, Manila. Their charred remains were found months later in Indang, Cavite. Several police officers, all belonging to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), were arrested and indicted for the twin murders. The mastermind of the killings, however, remains unknown.

Dumlao, Aquino and Mancao also belonged to the PAOCTF, an elite anti-crime group headed by Panfilo Lacson, now an opposition senator. Aquino currently has other legal problems in the United States, where he fled after being implicated in the Dacer-Corbito case. Last week Aquino was indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey on spying charges. He might escape prosecution for now in the more serious charge of kidnapping and double murder in his own country, but his former colleagues in the PAOCTF will have to confront Dumlao’s accusations.

Five years after the grisly murders, will Dacer and Corbito finally get justice? The nation awaits the truth.