Dacer family wants Erap charged in murder case

The daughters of slain publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer have asked the Department of Justice to give them time to file an amended complaint that will include former President Joseph Estrada as among the accused in the November 2000 killing of Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito. In a five-page motion, the complainants cited former police officer Cezar Mancao II’s earlier testimony at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18 identifying Estrada as among those involved in the abduction and killing of Dacer and Corbito as the reason for the amended complaint. The complainants include Carina Dacer, Sabina Dacer-Reyes, Emily Dacer-Hungerford and Amparo Dacer-Henson. The Manila RTC is handling the reinvestigation of the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, while the DOJ is handling the complaint Dacer’s daughters filed against former police chief and now Senator Panfilo Lacson. "There is a need to amend the present complaint so that those responsible for the gruesome killing of Dacer and Corbito, particularly former President Joseph Estrada, may be made to answer for the crime," read the motion filed by the complainants’ lawyers on Monday. The motion was lodged the day Lacson delivered a privilege speech at the Senate accusing Estrada of micro-managing government agencies, including the police and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF). Members of the PAOCTF allegedly carried out Dacer and Corbito’s killings on Nov. 24, 2000. At the time, Lacson was concurrent chief of the PNP and the PAOCTF. More time In their motion, the complainants said that because they are all based in the United States, they would need time to seek an officer who is authorized to administer an oath in the US and acknowledge their amended complaint affidavit before the Philippine Consul.

In their motion, the daughters cited portions of Mancao’s testimony before the Manila RTC last September 3, 2009. "Who exactly were those personalities who were involved in that operation (to kill Dacer) or have knowledge about the operation?" state prosecutor Hazel Valdez asked Mancao. To which, Mancao replied: "I can say some people who are involved or have knowledge about the operation were then President Erap, Joseph Estrada because (former Senior Superintendent) Michael Ray Aquino told me in his office…" GMANews.TV tried to contact Estrada’s camp for comment, but the former president’s spokesperson, Margaux Salcedo, could not be reached. Estrada has repeatedly denied having any hand in Dacer and Corbito’s killings, or having any knowledge of the alleged operations that led to their death. Mancao’s affidavit executed on Feb. 13, 2009 tagged Lacson and Estrada as the brains behind the crime. - GMANews.TV