Ten years after he left the Philippines, former police Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino is back in the country to answer for the killings of veteran publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito. Aquino was accompanied by Philippine National Bureau of Investigation agents when he was extradited from the United States, where he went a decade ago to supposedly escape prosecution over the Dacer-Corbito killings in November 2000.
Michael Ray Aquino statement
Bago po ang lahat, gusto ko pong pasalamatan ang Poong Maykapal, ang aking pamilya at ang lahat ng taong tumulong at sumuporta sa akin for the ten most trying and challenging years of my life. You know who you are. Maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat. Lawyers who were assisting me in my pro se case in the United States advised me that I have strong grounds to appeal to the Supreme Court the decision of the United States Court of Appeals allowing my extradition to the Philippines. After consulting with my family, I have decided that it would be best to let the extradition process take its course. I sincerely believe that this is my opportunity to clear my name, prove my innocence and finally put to rest all speculations about me. Being falsely accused almost a decade ago for a crime I did not commit was not at all a surprise to me. What is tragic is that my family was not spared. My wife and son were regularly flagged down and harassed every time they left our home. Dumating pa yung panahon that my innocent son, young as he was then, began trembling, as if having anxiety or panic attacks, every time he saw uniformed police officers, and vehemently refused to go inside Camp Crame. At that particular point, I knew I had to make some very painful decisions in life. I sacrificed my career in exchange for freedom; uprooted my family and went on self-exile; and pursued other goals. I feared not the prosecution but the persecution, and for the safety and security of my family. I was interviewed by the media ten years ago and I categorically denied any knowledge of, and participation and involvement in, the alleged Dacer-Corbito case. That’s the truth and nothing has changed since then. Then and now, I still maintain my innocence. Moreover, gusto ko pong malaman ng sambayanang Pilipino na wala pong utos sa akin si President Joseph Ejercito Estrada o si Senator Panfilo M. Lacson to kidnap, harm and/or murder anyone specifically Mr. Salvador Dacer and Mr. Emmanuel Corbito. Wala na po akong maidaragdag, dahil wala po akong karagdagang kaalaman. Finally, I would like reiterate to everyone that I am now ready to face my accusers and to prove my innocence. I just hope and fervently pray that this time around, my guaranteed constitutional rights to due process — to have an honest-to-goodness preliminary investigation, to a speedy and public trial, to have the compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in my favor, to present controverting evidence, to have the assistance of a counsel of my own choice, to enjoy my rights to remain silent, and to exhaust all available legal remedies — would be respected and safe-guarded by the authorities concerned. Salamat po ng marami. Diyos ti agngina kanyayo amin. Daghang salamat sa inyong tanan.
Aquino arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2 (NAIA-2) early Sunday morning and was to be brought to NBI headquarters in Manila. The former police officer is considered a protégé of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who used to be considered the principal suspect in the twin killings. The Court of Appeals had ordered the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18 to drop the two counts of murder that the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed against the senator. But shortly after Aquino arrived in Manila from the US, he cleared Lacson and former President Estrada of allegations they had a hand in the twin killings. In a
statement, he said Lacson and Estrada never gave him any order to abduct, harm or kill Dacer or his driver Corbito.
“(Gusto) ko pong malaman ng sambayanang Pilipino na wala pong utos sa akin si President Joseph Ejercito Estrada o si Senator Panfilo M. Lacson to kidnap, harm and/or murder anyone specifically Mr. Salvador Dacer and Mr. Emmanuel Corbito. Wala na po akong maidaragdag, dahil wala po akong karagdagang kaalaman," he said in his statement.
Dacer-Corbito killings Aquino was a member of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the unit that allegedly carried out the twin killings. At the time, Lacson was Philippine National Police chief and concurrent PAOCTF head. Some of his subordinates at the latter were Aquino, and then police officers Cezar Mancao II and Glenn Dumlao. Aquino headed the PAOCTF's operations division, while Mancao led the unit's Task Group Luzon with Dumlao as his deputy. Aquino and Mancao left the Philippines on June 24, 2001 – supposedly on instructions from Lacson, who was just elected as senator in May that year. Also, Dumlao went to the US in May 2003. In an affidavit executed two years ago, Mancao said Lacson wanted them to leave the country because the administration of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo "would surely go after us and link us in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case." The Department of Justice filed murder charges against Dumlao in May 2001 and against Mancao and Aquino in September that year. However, it was only in 2008 when the DOJ – then under the leadership of Raul Gonzalez – started extradition proceedings for Mancao, Dumlao, and Aquino. Mancao and Dumlao were extradited in 2009, while Aquino decided to seek court action to fight his extradition. Aquino's bid was unsuccessful, and his defeat at the US Court of Appeals in April this year paved the way for his extradition to the Philippines.
Michael Ray’s affidavit clears Lacson While in detention in New Jersey, Aquino executed an affidavit dated August 9, 2010, clearing Lacson of involvement in the Dacer-Corbito killngs. Aquino said that contrary to what Mancao testified, Lacson never gave him orders to finish off a certain “Delta" and “Bero." "I specifically deny there was any order given to me by then Police Director General Panfilo M. Lacson to liquidate any person, specifically a certain ‘Bero’ and ‘Delta’ sometime in October 2000 or as testified by Mr. Mancao in open court during his testimony in support of his Motion [for] Discharge as State witness ‘sometime in September and early part of October 2000,’" said Aquino. He added that as far as he knows, Lacson "has no personal knowledge about any special operations against any person, much less against a certain ‘Delta’ or ‘Bero.’" Aquino’s former colleague, Mancao, had claimed in his Feb. 13, 2009 affidavit that “Delta" referred to Dacer while “Bero" referred to former police general Reynaldo Berroya, Lacson’s long-time nemesis.
Espionage Aquino may have fled to the United States in 2001, but it was only in 2005 when he was arrested by American authorities. The arrest, however, did not stem from the Dacer-Corbito case. Note that the Philippine DOJ began extraditions in 2008. Aquino was arrested in September 2005 for his unauthorized possession of US confidential documents described as a “blueprint" to topple Arroyo. In July 2006, Aquino pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized possession of US documents. He entered the guilty plea to the lower offense to avoid the heavier charge of espionage, which is punishable by life imprisonment.
A year later, Aquino was sentenced to six years and four months in prison for his supposed role in an effort to use the information to undermine the Arroyo administration. Aquino was originally indicted for conspiring with former FBI intelligence analyst Leandro Aragoncillo and high-level national public officials in the Philippines to defraud the US government by impeding its function in protecting classified information from disclosure. He was also indicted for acting in the United States as agent of a foreign government without prior notification from the US attorney general. But in April 2009, a New Jersey federal judge reduced his sentence to three years and 10 months, or about the time Aquino has served, counting credit for good behavior. Aquino, however, remained under US custody because of the extradition proceedings he was facing over the Dacer-Corbito killings in the Philippines.
— MRT/LBG/HS, GMA News 
GMA Brandtalk
Tracking
Archives
