Lacson innocent on Dacer-Corbito killings, witness says

After he took the witness stand on Wednesday, former police Superintendent Glenn Dumlao defended his former boss, fugitive Senator Panfilo Lacson, from allegations that he was the mastermind in the Dacer-Corbito murders. In an interview after the double murder case hearing at the Manila Regional Trial Court (MRTC) Branch 18, Dumlao also asked Lacson to return to the country and face the charges slapped against him to prove his innocence. Lacson, who has been in hiding since January this year, has been accused of masterminding the November 2000 killing of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito. "Para sa akin, labanan niya ito. Labanan niya kasi kalayaan niya ang nakataya dito at ang katotohanan (For me, he should fight this. He should fight because his freedom and truth are at stake)," Dumlao said. "Ako naman, nasa likod niya ako. Walang kaalam-alam si Senator Lacson, (As for me, I will be behind him. Senator Lacson knows nothing about this)," Dumlao told reporters. "Palagi ko nang sinasabi, nung nasa Amerika, sinasabi ko sa US, wala syang alam. Labanan niya whatever way he can (Even when I was still in the United States, I've been saying he is innocent. He should fight this in whatever way he can)," he added. Dumlao was one of Lacson's subordinates at the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Task Force, the unit implicated in the killing of Dacer and Corbito. He was extradited to the Philippines in July 2009, more than six years after he fled to the Uniteld States in May 2003. Lacson fled the country in January this year, a month before the court issued a warrant of arrest against him. Earlier on Wednesday, the Dacer family's counsels went to the Department of Foreign Affairs to seek the cancellation of Lacson's passport. Three affidavits Dumlao had executed three affidavits on the Dacer-Corbito killings. In June 2001, he implicated a government official codenamed “71" as the mastermind behind the murder. The codename is being ascribed to Lacson, a member of the Philippine Military Academy batch 1971. The affidavit likewise mentioned that a "special operation" to finish off Dacer had the nod of Malacañang, or the office of then President Joseph Estrada, who has repeatedly denied having a hand in the twin killings. However, in his last two affidavits in May 2003 and March 2007, Dumlao exonerated Lacson. He claimed that he was allegedly pressured and tortured by officials of the Arroyo administration to link Lacson to the crime. "I have of my own free will and volition executed this affidavit to reiterate and describe the efforts by certain Philippine government officials to threaten, coerce, and intimidate me into falsely implicating their political opponents," said Dumalo in his March 2, 2007 affidavit. Judge asked to inhibit In a related development on Wednesday, the other suspects in the Dacer-Corbito killings asked Makati RTC Branch 18 Presiding Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina to inhibit herself from hearing the case. In a joint motion for inhibition, suspects Margarito Cueno, Cristostomo Purificacion, Rommel Rollan, Ruperto Nemenio, and former PO2 Thomas Sarmiento said Medina "had displayed manifest partiality, bias, and hostility" when she denied Sarmiento's manifestation and motion to remove him from the charge sheet. According to Sarmiento, Dumlao implicated in his June 2001 affidavit a certain Mario Sarmiento, and not him. "Despite this, the Honorable Acting Judge still denied fthe said manifestation and motion and refused to dismiss the charges against him [Sarmiento] on a simple procedural ground that the prosecution has not yet rested its case," read a portion of the motion to inhibit. The said motion will be tackled at a hearing scheduled on August 11. – VVP/RSJ, GMANews.TV