Mancao bucks transfer to Manila City Jail

MANILA, Philippines - Former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II, a suspect in the nine-year-old Dacer-Corbito case, had refused to be transferred to the Manila City Jail. Mancao expressed his preference to stay in his current detention facility at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) compound when he filed a motion to Judge Myra Garcia-Fernandez of the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 18. The government is eyeing Mancao as a state witness in the killing of publicist Salvador “Bubby" Dacer and Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. His testimony is seen to change the political dynamics of the 2010 general elections. Mancao’s motion, filed last Tuesday, was in response to the motion of three detained suspects – former SPO4 Marino Soberano, SPO3 Mauro Torres and SPO3 Jose Escalante. The three accused Mancao of receiving special treatment from the Arroyo administration with his continuous stay at the NBI compound. They said that as a suspect, Mancao should also be detained at the Manila City Jail. Mancao was taken into an air-conditioned safehouse at the NBI after he returned to the country last June 4. His heavily guarded room is furnished with a TV set and a refrigerator. “At the onset, we wish to manifest that we adopt in toto all of the manifestations made by State Prosecutor Hazel Valdez in open court last June 17, 2009 by way of opposition to the motion filed by accused Marino Soberano, Jose Escalante, and Mauro Torres to commit Mancao to the MCJ," Mancao’s motion read. The former subordinate of opposition Senator Panfilo Lacson also said in his motion that there is nothing illegal in his being under the protective custody of the NBI, an agency directly under the Department of Justice (DOJ). He said that under Republic Act 6981, which gives life to the government’s witness protection program, specifically mandates the DOJ to be the head agency in the implementation of the said act. Valdez had argued that placing Mancao under NBI custody is “merely giving life to the mandate of the law on protection of witnesses whose lives may be in danger." Mancao was a former member of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), which in 2000 was headed by Lacson. Senator Francis Escudero has already expressed fears that the return of Mancao "could potentially be used to discredit the political opposition as a whole." Lacson said the Arroyo administration would use Mancao to get back at him for his exposés on government corruption, many of them involving the First Family. A day after Mancao’s return, Lacson dropped his presidential plans for the 2010 elections. He cited financial constraints – and not Mancao – as reason for his decision. - GMANews.TV