Dumlao still weighing option to appeal extradition ruling of US court

CHICAGO, Illinois - Detained former Philippine police officer Glenn Galapon Dumlao is still weighing his options on whether or not to appeal the court order for his extradition to the Philippines. Said Dumlao’s public defender Tracey Gaffey in a phone interview on Wednesday, “Dumlao will have to tell me today if he still wants to appeal the order." But at the close of office hours, Gaffey said in an e-mail that she has yet to get a word from Dumlao. Dumlao will be extradited within 60 days if he does not appeal, officials have said, citing the bilateral extradition treaty between the Philippines and the United States. On Tuesday, Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson of the United States District Court of Eastern New York in Long Island found Dumlao “extraditable," based on a Philippine Supreme Court ruling which ordered the inclusion of Dumlao as an accused in the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson of the United States District Court of Eastern New York in Long Island found Dumlao “extraditable" Tuesday based on the decision of the Philippine Supreme Court’s order of including Dumlao in the indictment after Dumlao challenged his exclusion as a state witness in the case. Gaffey told the court at the hearing that “there was no probable cause on the double murder against Mr. Dumlao because the Supreme Court of the Philippines excluded him as a defendant in the case in 2005 so he can act as state witness in the case. But the prosecuting authorities in the Philippines misinterpreted the Supreme Court’s decision as “procedura" and not "substantial and therefore Mr. Dumlao is extraditable." Gaffe explained: “What happened Tuesday was not arraignment. It was an extradition hearing that lasted for three hours." In court documents obtained by this reporter, it showed that a Dec. 5, 2008 at 2:30 p.m. was scheduled for extradition hearing before Judge Tomlinson but it was written under the heading “Criminal Cause for Arraignment." The hearing was twice postponed to Monday, Dec. 8, and Tuesday, Dec. 9. Among the hundreds of pages of documents presented in court was a nine-page handwritten affidavit executed by Dumlao on June 12, 2001 before Quezon City Assistant Prosecutor Nilo A. Peňaflor, where he detailed his participation in the Dacer-Corbito murders. Dumlao, who was police superintendent and former deputy chief for operation of the Task Group Luzon of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (Paoctf), named the conspirators in the double murder the subordinates under his command and his superiors, Police Senior Superintendents Cezar O. Mancao II and Michael Ray Aquino, Paoctf chief for Task Force Luzon and Operations Division Chief, respectively. Dumlao, 45, is being held without bail. A native of Maddela in the northern province of Quirino province, he was residing at Patchogue, New York, when he was arrested last Nov. 20 on the strength of a warrant of arrest issued by Judge William D. Wall on Nov. 18. According to court records, Dumlao, whose last known employment was as a house cleaner of apartment Neck Lane, South Hampton, New York, is being investigated by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Meanwhile, at the initial hearing of the case of Dumlao’s co-accused, Cezar O. Mancao II, in the US District Court in Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale last Dec. 3, Bernardo Lopez was appointed as Mancao’s public defender to assist him in his extradition case. Along with Dumlao and Mancao, Michael Ray Aquino rounds out their third co-accused in the Dacer-Corbito case. An extradition hearing has yet to be initiated for Aquino although the three of them were requested for extradition by the Philippine government to face trial for the Dacer-Corbito double murder. Court records showed that Aquino, who is appealing his sentence for spying before the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the one who stage-managed the murder of Dacer and Corbito, with the help of Dumlao and Mancao. Aquino, along with Mancao and Dumlao, were trusted officers of then PNP chief, now senator, Panfilo Lacson. The three fled the Philippines after they were accused as conspirators in the double murder. On Nov. 24, 2000 between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in Manila, Dacer and Corbito were kidnapped by armed men, who turned out to be subordinates of Aquino, Mancao and Dumlao. On the night of the same day, Dacer and Corbito were later strangled and their bodies were burned and found in barangay Buna Lejos in Indang, Cavite, near southern metropolitan Manila. - GMANews.TV