NBI agents fly to US to fetch Michael Ray Aquino

UPDATED 2:20 p.m. - Two National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents flew to the United States Monday night to fetch former Philippine police Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino, a key suspect in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case. NBI Foreign Liaison Division chief Claro de Castro Jr. and NBI-Airport Division Head Agent Jesus Manapat left aboard a Philippine Airlines flight, radio dzBB reported on Tuesday. De Castro and Manapat expect to meet with Philippine Embassy officials in the US to arrange Aquino's travel documents, the report said. However, no specific date has been set yet on when the NBI agents will return to the Philippines with Aquino. Aquino will be turned over to the NBI agents by US Marshals who will bring him to Los Angeles from New Jersey. Aquino will be extradited after a US court junked his appeal questioning his extradition over the Dacer-Corbito case. For her part, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said for security purposes, the Philippine government will not provide the media a blow-by-blow account of the development on Aquino's imminent extradition. "I cannot disclose to you the schedule, for security reasons. I myself do not know the specific details," said De Lima at a news briefing. She added that all that she knows is that Aquino will be transferred from New Jersey to Los Angeles, where the NBI agents will pick him up. Asked whether Aquino will likely arrive at the Philippines this week, De Lima replied: "Maybe you'll just know it when he's headed here or when he's at the airport already." Lead suspect Aquino, a former police colonel, is one of the suspects in the killing of veteran publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. The double murder case filed against him is being handled by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18. Aquino is considered a protégé of Senator Panfilo Lacson, who was a suspect in the case until recently when the Court of Appeals dismissed the criminal charges against him and the arrest warrants issued against him. Before becoming a senator, Lacson was the head of the Philippine National Police and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the unit that allegedly carried out the Dacer-Corbito killings. Aquino, during his stint in the police force, served under the PAOCTF as head of the unit's operations division. The other members of the group were former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II, who headed the PAOCTF's Task Group Luzon, and former Superintendent Glenn Dumlao, Mancao’s deputy for operations. - with a report from Sophie Dedace, VVP, GMA News