EDITORIAL — Murder without a mastermind

Here is another crime where the suspected triggermen have been caught but the mastermind remains unidentified and no motive has been established. Today marks the seventh year since Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito were waylaid by armed men at the boundary of Manila and Makati. The charred remains of the two men, identified through dentures, were dug up months later in a shallow grave in Cavite. State witnesses said Dacer, a publicist of former President Fidel Ramos, was tortured for days before being finished off.

Last week a Manila judge issued an arrest warrant for former police Senior Superintendent Glenn Dumlao, who was supposed to turn state witness but instead went into hiding in mid-2003. Dumlao is now believed to be in the United States like two other former police officers linked to the grisly murders – Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao. Aquino is serving time in a federal prison for espionage.

The three men are all former members of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force — an elite unit that was headed by Panfilo Lacson before he was promoted by then President Joseph Estrada to the top post in the Philippine National Police. Ten former PAOCTF members were indicted together with five civilians for the murders, fueling speculation about how high up the blame would go, especially amid reports that Dumlao would testify against Aquino and Mancao. 

But Dumlao disappeared and the trail that could have led to the brains — and the motive for Dacer’s execution — has gone cold. Today his heirs mark their seventh year of waiting for justice. They are not alone in a seemingly hopeless search. Relatives of hundreds of victims of unexplained killings continue to await justice. Some aren’t even sure if their missing relatives are dead. And the killings and disappearances are certain to continue. Those who ordered the killings of Dacer, Corbito – and even Benigno Aquino Jr., for that matter – have not been made to account for their crimes. This can only guarantee more executions.