Lacson: State prosecutor pressured witness to tag me in Dacer-Corbito case

Senator Panfilo Lacson on Monday accused a state prosecutor of pressuring Glenn Dumlao into linking him to the killings of publicist Salvador “Bubby" Dacer and Dacer’s driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000. “Maliwanag, sinabi ni Glenn Dumlao iniipit siya ni (Assistant State Prosecutor) Hazel Valdez na pumunta sa US para gawin ang statement ni Cezar Mancao," Lacson said at his first press briefing since he came out of hiding. (It’s clear that Glenn Dumlao was being pressured by Hazel Valdez into going to the US to issue the same statement as Cezar Mancao II’s.) Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, however, said that Valdez has already sent her a memorandum explaining that there was no undue pressure on the witnesses in the Dacer-Corbito case. De Lima also said she thinks her prosecutors handling the high-profile case were only doing their job. Mancao had earlier claimed that he had heard Lacson and former police intelligence officer Michael Ray Aquino talking about the purported plan to “neutralize or liquidate" Dacer. Dumlao, however, insisted that Lacson had nothing to do with the crime. Lacson said Mancao himself was also “pressured" by state prosecutors into blaming him for the crime. “That’s a very serious offense for a state prosecutor, to commit subornation of perjury. You’re after delivery of justice. Ginagawa nila hindi na delivery of justice (what they are doing is not delivery of justice)," he said. Mancao and Dumlao worked under Lacson in the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the unit that allegedly carried out the twin killings. Lacson headed the task force when he was chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP). - GMA News