Dacer daughters file $120-million damage suit vs Erap, Ping, others

MANILA, Philippines - Daughters of slain publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer have filed in a US district court a $120-million civil suit against former President Joseph Estrada, fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson and several others in connection with the double murder of their father and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

The Dacer sisters Carina, Sabina, Emily and Amparo filed the civil suit at the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco for compensatory and punitive damages for the cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, torture and extrajudicial killing of their father, according to a notice received by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Through lawyers Rodel Rodis and Felix Antero, they sought $20 million in principal compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages.

The Dacer sisters named Estrada, Lacson, businessman Dante Tan, former Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) president Reynaldo Tenorio and former police officers Michael Ray Aquino, Glenn Dumlao and Vicente Arnado as respondents in the suit filed yesterday (Sept. 16 in the US).

It was the first formal complaint filed in court to implicate the former president in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case. Estrada had repeatedly denied any involvement in the killings.

Tenorio headed Pagcor, the government-owned corporation engaged in casino operations, during Estrada’s two-and-a-half-year term, while Tan was the main player in the Best World Resources stock manipulation scandal and owner of Best World Gaming and Entertainment Corp., which was given the sole authority by Pagcor to conduct a nationwide computerized online bingo game.

The Dacer sisters cited the Allen Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Torture Victims Protection Act as basis for the filing of the case in a US court.

They argued that under the ATCA, adopted in 1789 as part of the original Judiciary Act, “the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”

They said this statute “allows US courts to hear cases of gross human rights abuses brought by foreign citizens against officials of a foreign government for conduct committed anywhere in the world in violation of the law of nations.”

Erap saddened by Dacer civil suit

Estrada spokeswoman Margaux Salcedo said the former president was saddened by the reports that the family of his friend Bubby Dacer has filed a $100-million damage suit against him, Lacson and several others before a US district court in San Francisco.

Salcedo said Estrada and his camp have not received any formal information yet.

“We have not received any formal information, so it would be premature to comment. Suffice it to say that President Estrada maintains that Bubby Dacer was a good friend and saddened by this initial news because the accusations are not true,” Salcedo said.

DOJ prosecutors handling the criminal case being tried in Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18 said the civil action of the Dacers “will not adversely affect the criminal cases in the Philippines because the US suit is purely civil in nature and based on different statutes, more particularly on US laws on torts, torture, and extrajudicial killing.”

“Apparently, under US laws, even aliens/non-citizens can sue fellow aliens for compensatory and punitive damages for violations of these laws,” said State Prosecutor Hazel Decena-Valdez.

Lawyer Demetrio Custodio, counsel of the Dacers in the criminal case, said his clients decided to finally implicate former President Estrada in the murder of their father after gathering what they believe are pieces of convincing evidence.

Asked what these pieces of evidence against Estrada are, the counsel replied: “The same things being bandied about before.”

Former senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II, one of the accused in the double murder case who was extradited back from the US last year to testify for the prosecution, has already hinted on the involvement of Estrada in his testimony.

In his affidavit signed on Feb. 14 last year in Broward County in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Mancao said he was present when Lacson allegedly gave the order to then Senior Superintendent Aquino to kill Dacer.

Mancao stated that it was sometime in October 2000 that he heard Lacson ask Aquino, “Noy, kelan ba titirahin si Delta kasi nai-irita na si Bigote sa kanya (When do we hit Delta because Bigote is already irked),” apparently referring to Dacer’s given codename Delta.

Aquino replied: “Uunahin na muna namin si Bero (former police intelligence chief Reynaldo Berroya) malapit na kami sa kanya (we will hit Berroya first, we are already close).”

Lacson, according to Mancao, replied, “Pagsabayin na ninyo sila (hit them both simultaneously).”

Lacson headed the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) while concurrently chief of the Philippine National Police.

Aquino, on the other hand, was operations chief of the PAOCTF while Mancao served as chief of Task Force Luzon of the PAOCTF.

Dacer and Corbito were snatched at the corner of Zobel Roxas Street and South Super Highway at the boundary of Manila and Makati on Nov. 24, 2000. They were subsequently brought to Indang, Cavite where they were killed and their bodies burned.

Arnado reportedly led the team that snatched Dacer and Corbito and was tasked to meet up with senior superintendent Teofilo Viña, chief of Task Force Visayas of the PAOCTF.

Mancao’s sworn statement had revealed a meeting at a hotel in Las Vegas in August 2001 where Aquino was blaming Viña for a sloppy job in disposing of Dacer’s vehicle. It also mentioned the names of Reynaldo Oximoso Sr., alias “Oxi,” driver of the vehicle, and Arnado.

Mancao’s affidavit prompted the daughters of Dacer to file double murder charges against Senator Lacson.

In a nine-page affidavit of complaint filed on March 27 last year, they alleged that it was Lacson who “ordered the killing of our father” based on a recent testimony of Mancao, one of the suspects in the double murder case.

“Sen. Lacson not only conspired with the accused in the murders of our father and Mr. Corbito but in fact orchestrated the same. Being then the head of the PAOCTF he exercised ascendancy over all members of the task force, particularly those who executed the killings,” the complaint stated.

“To be sure, the acts of PAOCTF personnel involved before, during and after the gruesome killing of our father and Mr. Corbito could have only been done upon the direction of Sen. Lacson,” the Dacer siblings added.

Enrile defends Lacson

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has defended Lacson after an anti-crime group filed an ethics complaint against the fugitive senator before the Senate early this week, in connection with the kidnap-slay of Dacer and Corbito.

Enrile said the Ethics Committee now led by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is tasked to study the case.

Enrile said that as far as he is concerned, Lacson has not abandoned his duties as senator as contained in the ethics complaint filed by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VAAC).

“He is not abandoning, so far as I know. Only that he has not come back because there is a pending warrant against him. When he comes back he will be arrested anyway, so how can you say that he has abandoned his office?” Enrile asked.

“We will study the case. Let the Ethics Committee study the case,” Enrile added.

The VACC filed last Sept. 14 the ethics complaint against the former police chief-turned-politician for fleeing the country after the justice department filed charges against him in connection with the Dacer-Corbito case.

“In leaving the country admittedly to elude law enforcement authorities, it became necessary for Philippine authorities to alert the International Police to look for Lacson,” the complaint read. “Such a situation where the Honorable Lacson put himself in while bringing with him everywhere his status as senator of the Republic has put its prestige and honor in bad light.”

Ironically, Lacson headed the Ethics Committee in the last 14th Congress, where he initiated the hearing against then presidential aspirant Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. – Christina Mendez, Jose Rodel Clapano, Perseus Echeminada