Former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II on Monday denied giving a false testimony against Sen. Panfilo Lacson, whose double murder charges were recently dismissed by the Court of Appeals. Speaking publicly for the first time since the CA promulgated its ruling, Mancao said he is "disappointed" that the appellate court voided the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18's finding of probable cause to prosecute Lacson for the twin killings. Mancao is the key witness that pointed to Lacson as the brains behind the killings of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. But the CA said his testimony against Lacson was not credible because of inconsistencies in his June 2001 and February 2009 affidavits. But Mancao said that if he were lying, then the personalities linked to the Dacer-Corbito killings would have already been in jail. "Kung totoong nagmanufacture ako ng statements, ang mga taong involved dito matagal nang nakakulong. Iyon lang ang nalalaman ko kaya iyon lang ang masasabi ko," Mancao told reporters at the Department of Justice in Manila. (If I indeed manufactured my statements, the people involved here would have long been jailed. That was all I knew, so that was all I said.)
Mancao met with Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to discuss the department's next moves regarding its appeal to the Court of Appeals. The DOJ has to file a motion for reconsideration 15 days upon receipt of the CA ruling. The DOJ, which is representing the People of the Philippines, is one of the respondents to the petition Lacson filed at the appellate court. The two other parties are the Manila RTC Branch 18 and the Dacer family. Because Mancao is not a direct party to Lacson's petition at the CA, he first has to file a motion for intervention before the appellate court. Mancao's lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, said that if the CA will deny his client's intervention, he may have to elevate the matter to the Supreme Court. "We will try to intervene now because the substantive rights of my client are affected. If we can't intervene here [Court of Appeals], then we will intervene before the Supreme Court," said Topacio.
'More effort' from SolGen sought Topacio also asked the Office of the Solicitor General to exert "more effort" in countering Lacson's petition. The OSG is the body tasked to represent government agencies, such as the DOJ, in court proceedings. In this case, the OSG represents the Department of Justice, which in turn is representing the People of the Philippines. "If the Solicitor General will represent the People of the Philippines, I hope it gives more effort to the pleadings they are filing. With all respect to the solicitors, it's like they are point-shaving, as in basketball. They were like holding back. I'm sure the learned and distinguished solicitors can do better than they did," said Topacio.
Case conference For her part, De Lima said she advised Mancao's camp to attend a joint case conference with the parties to the case:
Office of the Solicitor General representatives who are representing the DOJ panel that lodged the double murder case against Lacson; and The lawyers for the Dacer family. "I advised them to convene a joint conference... to discuss exhaustively the merits and demerits of the case and the resolution of the Court of Appeals, and what should really be the next course of action," said De Lima. She added that Mancao's status as a state witness and his coverage under the Witness Protection Program have not been affected because the CA's ruling is not yet final and executory. "We haven't talked about that yet because remedies can still be exhausted at the Court of Appeals. We are still considering him [Mancao] as our state witness and [his testimony] was the basis of the DOJ's finding of probable cause against Lacson and the RTC's finding of probable cause," said De Lima. — RSJ/KBK/MRT, GMA News 
GMA Brandtalk
Tracking
Archives
