Mancao: Michael Ray ordered Dacer 'neutralized'

MANILA, Philippines - It was former police official Michael Ray Aquino who ordered publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer "neutralized," according to former Senior Police Superintendent Cezar Mancao II. "I called Viña and asked him if he had any involvement in the disappearance and he told me that he had been tasked by Michael Aquino to get Bubby Dacer. I understood this to mean that Aquino had asked Viña to neutralize Dacer," said Mancao in a four-page affidavit he signed on March 1, 2007 in Broward County, Florida. Mancao was referring to Teofilo Viña, former chief of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) in the Visayas region. It was Viña who told Mancao about the crime after the latter was tasked to investigate the Dacer-Corbito case. Viña is already dead. He was shot by a lone gunman in Tanza, Cavite in January 2003. Leave the country Mancao also mentioned the name of Senator Panfilo Lacson in his affidavit, but did not directly link him to the crime. Lacson was head of the PAOCTF and director general of the Philippine National Police when Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito were killed in November 2000. Mancao only noted that Lacson told Aquino and him to "leave the country." He said Lacson advised them to leave because the "new presidential administration would come after us for the Dacer-Corbito case in an effort to destroy Lacson's reputation and affect Lacson's possible chances of a presidential bid in 2004." In the same affidavit, Mancao said former police official Glenn Dumlao told him that he blamed Aquino "for the illegal orders." "I understood the illegal orders to be conspiring in the abduction and murder of Dacer and Corbito," said Mancao. He, however, did not mention in the affidavit where the illegal orders came from. Mancao added that in a hotel in Las Vegas in August 2001, Aquino "complained that the task was not carried out correctly" and blamed Viña for "sloppily dumping" Dacer's car into a ravine in Cavite. Mancao, Dumlao, and Aquino were all members of the PAOCTF and were known subordinates of Lacson, who had since denied involvement in the twin killings. PAOCTF link Dacer and Corbito were kidnapped by armed men believed to be subordinates of Mancao, Dumlao, and Aquino between 11 and 11:30 a.m. of Nov. 24, 2000 at the intersection of Zobel Roxas Street and Osmeña Highway in Manila. The two where on their way to Manila Hotel to meet former President Fidel Ramos when the crime happened. Later in the night, the two victims were allegedly strangled to death and their bodies burned to ashes. All that remained were fragments of their teeth that were recovered in Barangay Buna Lejos in Indang town in Cavite. In the same affidavit, Mancao stated that in July 1998, then President Joseph Estrada formed the PAOCTF with Lacson as its leader. Aquino was appointed PAOCTF chief of operations while Mancao was appointed chief of PAOCTF Task Force Luzon. A month after Estrada was ousted in January 2001, Mancao said "the PAOCTF was disbanded and its former members were reassigned to far flung areas of the country." - SOPHIA M. DEDACE, GMANews.TV