“So, why would Berroya volunteer that Joseph Estrada could not have possibly ordered the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and the latter’s driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000?”
by Ducky Paredes
Apparently from the brouhaha raised by the Philippine National Police over former President Joseph Estrada’s riding in a jeep with a mounted replica of a world war II machine gun, the administration will do anything to stop Erap. Estrada wants to run again for President and even if chances are that he will probably eventually be disqualified by a Supreme Court ruling, Erap would still be the most popular and the most significant candidate.
That the administration is trying to connect Erap to the Dacer-Corbito killing should probably be taken in the same light as the machine gun raps — A lot of sound and fury signifying not much.
Former police intelligence chief Reynaldo Berroya was personally arrested by Erap in front of the media in connection with the kidnapping of a Taiwanese businessman. As a result, Berroya was found guilty by a lower court, spent time in jail and was only much later exonerated by the Supreme Court. Thus, there is no love lost between Berroya and Erap.
So, why would Berroya volunteer that Joseph Estrada could not have possibly ordered the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and the latter’s driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000?
“Estrada was not mentioned in the killings, and I don’t think it is in his character to order somebody killed,” said Berroya in brushing aside an affidavit issued from the United States by former police officer Cesar Mancao, linking Estrada to the crime.
Mancao’s affidavit cutely referred to a “bigote” being the man behind the abduction and probable murder of Bubby Dacer. (No corpus deliti; thus, officially, no murder?) Everything about Bigote comes from the latest edition of the Mancao Affidavit. There is nothing else to back this up.
Remember that in the Dacer-Corbito case, there have been several sets of affidavits by the same set of police officers saying contradictory things. This is explained in some of the affidavits that they were forced to swear to falsehoods in previous affidavits by their higher-ups.
Because the majority of these affidavits were obviously at least partial lies, any new affidavits coming from PNP personnel involved in this case have to be studied carefully. We must beware of accepting them at face value.
Even Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez discounted Mancao’s implication of Estrada when he said that that the reference to the former President as “bigote” has little value as evidence.
“Well, if you just want to make trouble for him (Estrada), you can stretch that story,” said Gonzalez. One can create almost any scenario from the Mancao affidavit because of its vagueness and its primarily being based purely on hearsay or Mancao’s misrepresention of what he actually witnessed (if any).
For instance, in his affidavit, Mancao said that he was in a car with then police chief and now Senator Panfilo Lacson, driver Reynaldo Oximoso and Senior Supt. Michael Ray Aquino when Lacson gave the order to abduct Dacer was allegedly,
Oximoso was tracked down by media after the Mancao affidavit surfaced. Driver Oximoso swears that he cannot remember even just ever having Mancao as a passenger in Lacson’s car.
But, could Erap have ordered his PNP Director General Ping Lacson to do the abduction?
Estrada says that he has never had anyone killed. I believe him. Having known him from the time we were in high school, I know that he is not a killer. If anything, he is a softie at heart and easily forgives others.
I also know that whatever bad blood there might have been between Dacer and Estrada (since Dacer was secretly working with those planning to depose Erap), when they met in Malacanang two days before Dacer was abducted, the two old friends and “kumpadres twice over” fixed whatever had gone awry in their relationship.
Says Senator Jinggoy Estrada about the Dacer visit to Erap: “He (Dacer) was there in Malacañang and there was no tinge of animosity between them, as far as I can recall. He even requested the lifting of the travel order then imposed on then Paranaque Mayor Joey Marquez, who at that time, I think was bound for travel abroad. Dacer’s request was immediately granted by my father.”
Former Congressman Baby Asistio who brought Dacer to Malacanang that day relates that the two friends first let out all of their “sama ng loob” before settling down to embracing each other to resume being friends again.
Adds Senator Estrada: “We are confident nothing will come out of that affidavit of Mancao simply because we do not have anything to do with it. That’s not within our character and our record will prove that we do not engage in such.”
Even the affidavits themselves seem to clear Erap. For instance, Dumlao spoke of interrogating a blindfolded Dacer and asking him what he and Erap had discussed in his Malacaang visit. If the “bigote” behind the abduction was Erap, why would they feel a need to find out what their boss discussed with the abducted. Why would Erap instruct them to find out what he discussed with his kumpadre?
That makes no sense at all.
According to Dumlao’s affidavit, it was Michel Rey Aquino who told Dumlao to ask Dacer what he and Erap discussed. If that is the case, one must conclude that it could not possibly be Estrada who ordered Aguino to do the abduction. Whoever gave the abduction order to Aquino must have wanted to know very badly what the two old friends discussed.
Who would be so interested in this that they would commit a murder? There are two possibilities – those who were plotting against Estrada who discovered that Dacer (their fellow conspirator) may have turned against them or anyone on the Estrada side who for whatever reason were discomfited by the renewal of the Erap-Bubby friendship. Certainly, then sitting President Erap would not have had an interest in seeing his kumpadre dead!
When the accusation against Erap on Dacer-Corbito first surfaced, Erap was in the process of being demonized. Since then, however, the true character of the former President has surfaced. As it now turns out, Estrada was not only not as bad as his detractors made him out to be, Gloria Arroyo and many others turned out to be worse and that Erap is actually better than most of us thought he could ever be.
Erap’s humility was born of his rapid rise and ignominious fall, and the final vindication of his unflinching faith in truth and justice. “Six years and six months,” Estrada often says almost to himself. That was how long he was incarcerated. Early rage gave way to enlightenment over the years, and Estrada, upon reflecting on the past, would often say: “I was overconfident.”
Enlightenment then became forgiveness, which grew to become humility, and such humility made even his sworn critics laugh at his self-deprecating humor, and melted even the hardest of hearts, even that of Rey Berroya.
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The First Cabinet-Congress Media Fellowship Golf was held at Wack-Wack last Thursday. Although the individual honors were evenly divided between Media and Congress, Cabinet (Ermita-Esperon-Favila-Mendoza-Dureza-Lantion and others) won the team competition. But, then, stranger things have happened using the Double Peoria scoring system!
Among the media, individual stand-outs were in Class B and C. Runner-up in Class B was Cesar Lacuna from MMDA Radio runner-up and Igan Arnold Clavio of GMA network, Champion.
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hvp 03.29.09)
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