De Lima: Erap may be covered by Dacer-Corbito reinvestigation

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Tuesday said that if former President Joseph Estrada will be implicated in the DOJ reinvestigation of the November 2000 Dacer-Corbito killings, the former leader will likely be asked to participate in the inquiry. At a news briefing in Manila, De Lima said the reinvestigation will also have former police officers Cezar Mancao II and Glenn Dumlao execute new statements. The two former police officers were subordinates of then Philippine National Police chief Panfilo Lacson at the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the unit that allegedly carried out the killings. Mancao and Dumlao had executed statements that said the operations to finish off Dacer had the approval of Malacañang or the Office of the President, then occupied by Estrada. On Tuesday, De Lima said that if Mancao and Dumlao will again link Estrada, then the former President will be covered by the reinvestigation. "I'm giving them (Mancao and Dumlao) a chance to come clean. It's either they would affirm their original statements or modify if warranted, or completely change. If their statements have references to the former president as allegedly bigote, then so be it, he will be included (in the reinvestigation)," De Lima said. "Bigote" supposedly referred to Estrada because of his moustache. Estrada implicated in affidavits Estrada has repeatedly denied involvement in the twin killings. Before his death, Dacer was reportedly in possession of documents implicating Estrada to the 1999 BW Resources stock price fixing scandal. But Estrada said he has no motive in having Dacer killed. In an affidavit executed in February 2009, Mancao said that PAOCTF colleague Michael Ray Aquino utilized his men in "special operations" to "neutralize" a media man critical of Estrada. Mancao added that the operations had the nod of Malacañang, or the Office of the President. Mancao said the media man was referred to as "Delta," whom he later identified as Dacer. Mancao added that Aquino wanted Dacer liquidated first before "Berro" (Lacson's nemesis, then police Chief Superintendent Renaldo Berroya) because Estrada was supposedly peeved at Dacer already. Mancao elaborated this in his affidavit: "I was seated in the front seat of the car then driven by Sgt. Oximoso (‘Oxy’ as we usually called him), while Aquino and Lacson sat at the back. Aquino responded to Lacson that he intends to neutralize or liquidate Delta first because Erap was already peeved at him, saying: 'Tapusin muna namin si Delta, Sir, kasi naiirita na si Bigote sa kaniya.’" Dumlao, in an affidavit in June 2001, also 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. But in his last two affidavits in May 2003 and March 2007, Dumlao exonerated Lacson. He claimed he was pressured and tortured by officials from administration of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to link Lacson to the crime. — RSJ/KBK, GMA News