Prosecutors want judge in Dacer-Corbito case to stay

Government prosecutors handling the high-profile Dacer-Corbito double murder case were asked by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18 to comment on a motion seeking the inhibition of Acting Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina. After a hearing on the motion on Wednesday, Senior State Prosecutor Phillip Kimpo said Bunyi-Medina gave them 15 days to file their comment on the motion filed by suspects in the killing of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. "We have been given 15 days to file our comment. We will file an opposition, I don't think the judge has been biased," said Kimpo in an interview with GMANews.TV. Last week, double murder suspects Margarito Cueno, Cristostomo Purificacion, Rommel Rollan, Ruperto Nemenio, and former PO2 Thomas Sarmiento said Bunyi-Medina should inhibit from hearing the case because she "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 the 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. Mancao's letter In a related development on Wednesday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II went to her office last week to personally deliver a letter seeking to clarify security matters while the case is ongoing. Mancao, a witness in the killings, is yet to be removed from the list of the accused. He is under the protective custody of the National Bureau of Investigation and is also protected by the DOJ's Witness Protection Program. The former police officer was a subordinate of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who concurrently headed the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, the unit implicated in Dacer and Corbito's deaths. Lacson went into hiding last January before the court could issue an arrest warrant against him. — Sophia Dedace/RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV