The unprincipled gall of Noynoy Aquino

On Aquino's position re the pardon of Erap 


WITH all due respect to the parents, late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino and former President Corazon “Cory” Cojuangco Aquino, I cannot help but lash out at the immoral gall of their son Sen. Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino, III who attacked the pardon of former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada without seemingly reviewing his family’s history first.

Noynoy stated his position by saying that: “….on the pardon aspect, it is my fundamental principle that if anybody committed a crime, time should be served and if punishment is not meted out, what will happen to us?”

For cosmic justice’s sake, what “principle” of his is Sen. Aquino talking about?

Is the yellow presidentiable forgetting that his very own father, Ninoy, was convicted of murder, illegal possession of firearms, subversion and sentenced to die? While Ninoy’s conviction during Martial Law was viewed as the kangaroo court type, so was Erap’s life conviction, which was made under the administration of the power grabber Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and by special Sandiganbayan court justices who were soon promoted to the Supreme Court.

Estrada was indeed convicted of “plunder,” but it was made by a special court created by the administration of Arroyo who seized power from the democratically elected leader in 2001. The conviction of Noynoy’s dad was also made by a special court–a military tribunal formed during the Martial Law period that began September 1972 and virtually lasted until the fall of President Ferdinand Marcos.

The late Sen. Ninoy was imprisoned for seven years and seven months but was allowed to seek treatment and live in the US–a virtual pardon for what should have been a life (or death) sentence. The man whose pardon Sen. Noynoy criticizes, Estrada, was imprisoned for six years and six months. Both did not serve the rest of their sentences. So why is Noynoy putting the heat on Estrada’s case?

Conviction by itself means nothing if the political environment is unfair. Gloria Arroyo is perceived as the “Most Corrupt President in Philippine History” but even rules the land and has not been impeached all through nine years of illegitimate power.

If there’s anybody who’s actually more “criminal” between these two presidentiables, it might as well be Noynoy Aquino and not Erap Estrada. Why? Three good reasons.


Reason 1. Guilt of Sedition

Sedition is a big crime against the state and everyone knows that Noynoy and his mother actively took part in the unconstitutional ouster of then-incumbent Estrada during the so-called EDSA 2 in 2001.The fact that the Davide Supreme Court soon declared with hilarious novelty that Joseph Ejercito Estrada was no longer President of the Philippines does not in any way clear the EDSA 2 conspirators of their crime of sedition. Those who took part in ousting Estrada may or may not be actually prosecuted in the post-Arroyo future, but what is certain is that history will judge the never-previously-heard “constructive resignation” ruling as nothing but a conspiratorial lame legal ploy to legitimize the power grab against a man popular with the masses.

Cory Aquino, after having been diagnosed with fatal cancer, already apologized to Erap but Noynoy sure has not. In fact, Noynoy the son tried to belittle the mother’s apology as a “joke,” to which the late President apparently compromised by issuing a statement to the effect that it is, indeed, “a jest but she’s not taking it back.“


Reason 2. Tolerance of, if not complicity in covering up, the 2004 electoral fraud

Noynoy’s little-spoken but nonetheless criminal deeds against the people did not end with the 2001 EDSA coup. During the 2004 elections, Noynoy allowed, or perhaps helped facilitate the electoral cheating committed against Fernando Poe Jr. in the conspiracy to fraudulently declare Arroyo as the winner of the presidential race. Noynoy as Tarlac congressman did nothing as stalwarts of his Liberal Party and others railroaded the congressional canvassing by refusing to open the contested COCs (certificates of canvass). As Daily Tribune’s Ninez Cacho-Olivares notes, Noynoy Aquino “kept his mouth shut even in the face of massive electoral cheating,”  thus effectively preventing the Filipino public from knowing the real 2004 President-elect.

The only time Filipinos got to know that Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) really won in the 2004 polls was when the Hello Garci wiretapped tapes came out, which primarily showed that Arroyo engaged in conversations with elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano in connection with operations surrounding the May 11, 2004 polls. However, even when the Aquinos already learned about the tapes, Noynoy did not immediately withdraw support from the Illegitimate “President.” In fact, he even voted AGAINST the airing of the tapes during the fifth Congressional hearing on the “Hello Garci” issue on June 30, 2005, the first anniversary of the surreptitious wee-hour-of-the-morning congressional proclamation of Arroyo as “President-elect.”

In reaction to election-related criticisms of his 2005 Hello Garci vote, Noynoy’s camp has resorted to virtual lying to counter the issue. Noynoy’s website claims:

 When the “Hello, Garci” tapes were exposed in 2005, Aquino withdrew his support for the president, but voted against the use of the tapes in impeachment cases. Why? As damning as they may be for PGMA, Aquino argued against the use of the tapes as evidence because the law forbids it: Republic Act. 4200, or the “anti-wiretapping law,” prohibits and penalizes wire tapping and other violations of the privacy of communication. Simply said:  you may not use as evidence in a court of law any and all material that has been unlawfully obtained, such as the Hello Garci tapes.

Herein, what Sen. Noynoy Aquino’s camp foxily omits is that for over a month after the scandalous tapes surfaced, his family firmly stood by Arroyo. Noynoy even praised Arroyo’s televised July 2, 2005 I am sorry” speech, claiming it’s a “good start” for the controversial administration. Cory, for her part, even warned against resorting to extra-constitutional means to remove Arroyo, even as they themselves had four years earlier ousted Estrada and installed the Illegitimate in her place.

The sequence of events that his defense implies also constitutes falsehood: Noynoy Aquino actually withdrew support for Gloria only in July 8, 2005–six days AFTER he voted against the airing of the Hello Garci tapes. (As to why the Aquinos ultimately dropped Arroyo, GMA-7’s Stephanie Dychiu seems to point to the not-exactly favorable report of Task Force Luisita that came out that same month).

Moreover, Ninoy’s use of the illegality of using wiretapped evidence in defense of his Hello Garci vote sounds extremely lame in the face of his support for Estrada’s unconstitutional ouster in 2001. HIs claim that his Hello Garci vote is proof that he “abides by the law” either means Noynoy is inconsistent in the application of his beliefs, or that he neither understands nor genuinely respects the very Constitution his mother ratified in 1987, at least with regards presidential vacancy/succession. Then again, it could mean that Noynoy is nothing but a closet political opportunist masquerading as “holier than thou.”

Articles VII and XI of the 1987 Charter clearly stipulate that only four conditions warrant the succession of a new President: (1) death; (2) permanent disability; (3) resignation of the incumbent President; and (4) removal from office on impeachment. Truth is, Noynoy Aquino showed nary a sign of being legally bothered when he and his own mother joined and led the Anti-Erap Movement  and seditiously helped swore in Arroyo in the mob-filled streets of EDSA in January 2001, even as the President sitting in Malacanang adamantly refused to resign.


Reason 3. Hacienda Luisita: Land Theft, Killings and SCTEx Overprice?

Hacienda Luisita well symbolizes the oppression of the Filipino masses both from white-skinned colonizers and local elites. The sprawling Hacienda belonged to the Spanish firm, Compaña General de Tabacos de Filipinas, or Tabacalera, which acquired it in 1882 from the Spanish colonial crown. While the Philippine Revolution against Spain virtually succeeded, United States imperialist conquest of the islands ensured not only American exploitation of the islands but, as well, that remnants of Spanish colonization remain. Tabacalera’s ownership of Hacienda Luisita was one of those remnants.

In the 1920s, the Spanish company shifted from tobacco to sugar plantation and built a sugar mill as the US sugar quota guaranteed a profitable market. Persisting labor problems and threats from the Hukbalahab rebellion later forced Tabacalera to sell Hacienda Luisita, along with the Central Azucarera de Tarlac sugar mill, in the 1950s. President Ramon Magsaysay is said to have offered the land to Don Jose “Pepe” Cojuangco, Sr., Cory’s father, in the bid to prevent the then-already very wealthy and powerful Lopezes from acquiring it. The deal was brokered by Don Pepe’s son-in-law, Ninoy Aquino who was then a rising politician.

Stephanie Dychiu of GMA News.TV writes that Don Pepe “received significant preferential treatment and assistance from the government to facilitate his takeover of Hacienda Luisita and Central Azucarera de Tarlac in 1957.” While the Cojuangcos also had their small sugar plantation and had plenty of lands, bank holdings and Philippine pesos, they did not have enough dollars, which was then tightly regulated–to make the purchase. The Central Bank was the first government entity to help Cojuangco. So as to facilitate the foreign exchange flow needed to ensure acquisition of controlling interest in Tabacalera, the CB deposited a portion of the Philippines’ international reserves from a New York bank where Cojuangco took a 10-year loan of $2.1 million. The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) stepped in next, providing a 5.9 million loan to finance the purchase of Hacienda Luisita.

Assistance was extended by the Central Bank with the view that the Cojuangco acquisition would further the government’s land reform program. The 1957 Monetary Board Resolution No. 1240 stipulated that simultaneous with the accommodation for his foreign exchange needs, Cojuangco should purchase Hacienda Luisita but distribute it within ten years “to small farmers in line with the Administration’s social justice program.” That same year, GSIS Resolutions Nos. 1085 & 3202 essentially backed up the Central Bank ruling with different wordings by requiring the subdivision of the hacienda among the tenants who will shoulder the cost at terms and conditions that are reasonable. However, within only a little over two months, Cojuangco had a new GSIS resolution (No. 356) amended to limit it to “….shall be sold at cost to tenants, should there be any.”

Theft of Agrarian Land?

Beginning April 1958, Hacienda Luisita and the Tabacalera sugar mill became properties of Jose Cojuangco and his TADECO (Tarlac Development Corporation) company. Instead of Pedro or “Pete” Cojuangco who was Cory’s eldest brother, Ninoy Aquino was chosen as its administrator. Ten years passed but the Cojuangco-Aquino families did not keep their end of the contract. In reply to Land Authority Governor Conrado Estrella’s letter inquiring about the implementation of the loan condition, Cojuangco rather smugly wrote back that “it is doubtful whether the Central Bank had the power to impose that condition which was so alien to its function of stabilizing the country’s monetary system”. Don Pepe died in 1976 without fulfilling his promise to distribute land.

In 1972 when Martial Law was declared, President Marcos imprisoned his political nemesis and presidential material Ninoy Aquino but did not forcibly compel his family and Cojuangco kin to abide by the land distributorship terms of the 1957-1958 loan and foreign exchange assistance agreements. The TADECO owners did continue to receive written communications seeking to follow up on the 1967 notice(s) but which they always dismissed by claiming that there were no “tenants” and, thus, Hacienda Luisita couldn’t possibly be distributed. Herein, Cory’s family has largely banked their claim to the hacienda on what could be a technicality–the different wordings of the Central Bank and GSIS resolutions–”small farmers” and “tenants,” respectively.

Just before Ninoy and his family were allowed to leave for the United States for medical treatment, the Marcos government pursued the issue in court of the hacienda’s distributorship in court. Civil Case No. 131654 prospered and in December 1985, some two months before the 1986 snap presidential polls contended by the now-widowed Cory Cojuangco Aquino and strongman Marcos, Branch XLIII of the Manila Regional Trial Court handed its decision for TADECO to yield Hacienda Luisita to the Agrarian Reform ministry. In response, the Cojuangco-Aquinos elevated the case to the Court of Appeals.

Following the ouster of Marcos via the 1986 EDSA “People Power,” Cory Aquino was installed as President. The 1987 Mendiola Massacre involving the death of farmers pressing for genuine agrarian reform seemed to have made Cory speed up the implementation of land reform but not without first inserting a novel Stock Distribution Option (SDO) into her Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The SDO gives farmer tenants shares in a plantation corporation without actually transferring land. SDO had been criticized not only as possibly unconstitutional but more so, as a way for landowners to keep control of the land and farmers–and for the Cojuangco-Aquinos to avoid distributing Hacienda Luisita. As well, the Cory administration had the Court of Appeals dismiss the government case filed against the TADECO owners, who were no less than the President’s own family and kin (she is said to have divested herself of personal shares in the company).

When CARP took effect in 1989, the family adopted the SDO option despite many criticisms that the option disadvantaged the farmers. Only less than 5,000 out of the nearly 6,500 hectares of the original Hacienda Luisita land were submitted to the Agrarian Reform department. The exclusion of the combined 386.6 hectares of residential, commercial, road and other land improvement portions of the hacienda markedly lowered the value of land earmarked for land reform to only P40,000 per hectare. The valuation process was also seen as irregular if not appropriate, with the standing crop not only being included but also being categorized as non-land asset. The result is that when the land was incorporated into what is now Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) as spin-off of TADECO, the farmers became nominal shareholders, getting only 33.296% versus the 66.704 percent shares of the Cojuangco-Aquinos.

What is more, the SDO scheme was spread over 30 years, which meant that when a worker was fired, quit, or failed to complete require work hours, s/he was no longer eligible to receive the unreleased portion of his or her share, mandays or work hours being the basis of SDO distribution. It also meant that farmers’ entitlements were bound to shrink because new workers could be hired–which is what happened when the original 6,296 farm workers ballooned to almost double by 2005.

In June 2005, Noynoy Aquino’s family eventually distributed all the stock shares to the farmers in one fell swoop and ahead of the controversial 30th year schedule. However, this happened only following the November 16, 2004 Luisita massacre when some seven or so farmers were killed during a protest. The farmers decided to hold a strike amidst fears for their job security and dwindling wages following claims by management that the land was losing money. The  Cojuangcos’ long-term land use plan for the HLI–which included NO agricultural area and which already included the controversial Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway or (SCTEx)–had been uncovered.*  The farmers realized that the SDO had to go, subsequently petitioning for its revocation in 2003. Their frustration over always being outvoted 4-7 in the HLI board and the mass retrenchment of over 300 farmers in late 2004 also figured in.

Massacre and Assassinations

On November 6, farm workers and Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union workers had launched a prolonged picket of the Gate 1 of the hacienda’s sugar mill. When Arroyo’s government declared an Assumption of Jurisdiction, the Philippine National Police (PNP) forces were called in. Even with the police operation on November 15, they still but failed to disperse the strikers with the usual tear gas, water cannons, and truncheons.

The following day, the union officers were told to proceed to Noynoy’s uncle, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, Jr. in Makati for negotiations: they did but nothing happened. While the union leaders returned, however, 2 tanks, 17 trucks of soldiers, 700 police, a payloader, 4 water cannon fire trucks, and snipers were already in position. Initially, the dispersal of protesters was attempted with the use of the usual stuff but they fought back by slingshooting with rocks and burying tear gas canisters. When the police and military forces ran out of tear gas and water from the fire trucks, they started firing. Based on the Senate investigation on the incident, no less than 1000 rounds of ammunitions were used to disperse the Hacienda Luisita strikers. Those who were caught were beaten, arrested, and dragged into the military trucks.

Seven people died while 121 were injured, including 32 who sustained gunshot wounds, during what is now commonly referred to as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre. The unfortunate victims who died directly from the protest actions were: Jhayvie Basilio, 20; Juancho Sanchez, 20; Jhune David, 27; Jesus Laza, 34; Jaime Fastidio, 46 Adriano Caballero, 23    Jesse Valdez, 30. Up to the present, no one has been caught or charged for the carnage.

Then Congressman Noynoy Aquino decried the violence but claimed that the police and military merely acted in self-defense. The investigation by doctors led by Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo of the Health Alliance for Democracy would reveal details showing Noynoy was either lying or did not know what he was talking about.  Autopsies of the dead and medical examination of the wounded revealed that they were in running, lying, crouching positions when shot. Three bodies supposedly tested positive for gunpowder; however, the doctors, staff, and nurses of the Cojuangco-owned St. Martin de Porres Hospital where the bodies were brought had earlier been told to leave as the military and police took over.

The Hacienda Luisita-related killings did not stop on November 16, 2004, though. Aglipayan priest William Tadena was shot dead while traversing the La Paz, Tarlac provincial highway on the way to say his next mass; Fr. Tadena had mobilized his parishioners in support of the hacienda picket workers. Then there’s sexagenarian peasant leader Ben “Tatang” Conception who was shot dead inside the house of his daughter in Angeles City; he also supported the Luisita strikers.

Perhaps the most obvious kill in terms of association with the fateful picket strike is that of sugar mill union president Ricardo Ramos who was killed by a sniper bullet on the head on October 25, 2005, hours after he distributed what served as wage compensation to the sugar mill workers. He had earlier sought the help of the sheriff to inspect the Cojuangco warehouse when management claimed they had no money to pay wages. When the warehouse was found to be full of sugar, an agreement was made for the sale of the sugar by the Department of Labor and Employment, with the proceeds going to the workers. Management then tried to take charge of the money so they could make payroll deductions for the loans but Ramos refused and demanded the payroll list instead.

It should be noted that Noynoy Aquino did express shock at the murder, saying that Ramos had been always fair to him. The PNP claimed that the communists probably executed the killing because he had been on cooperative terms with management. Given the fact, however, that no police nor military personnel involved in the violent Hacienda Luisita dispersal has ever been charged, the PNP statement does not seem reliable.

There will be more murders of individuals connected with protest actions revolving around Hacienda Luisita. Tirso Cruz, a director of the United Luisita Workers’ Union, was shot dead by motorcycle-riding men on March 18, 2006; Cruz, a member of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, had led actions demanding the withdrawal of the military in ten barangays of the hacienda and protesting against the constructions of the Hacienda Luisita portion of the SCTEx toll way. Another Aglipayan priest connected to the hacienda strikers would bite the dust. Fr. Alberto Ramento, no less than the Supreme Bishop of the church, was stabbed to death on October 3, 2006 while sleeping inside the church rectory: while it appeared to be a robbery, persons close to him strongly suspect his killing was related to the hacienda because he had taken the cause of Fr. Tadena by tending to the farm workers.

Current Status

In what could possibly be a politically motivated but not exactly unfair move, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) placed the Hacienda Luisita under forcible acquisition following its revocation of the SDO on December 23, 2005. The Cojuangco-Aquinos dubbed the development as Arroyo’s vendetta for the Aquino family’s call for her resignation. They appealed and obtained a TRO (temporary restraining order) from the Supreme Court. The case is pending while the TRO has been in effect for over three years now.

Further complicating any future distribution of the hacienda are the loans incurred by the Cojuangco-Aquino family using some portions of the land as mortgage with banks. Noynoy Aquino had changed his statements as to the position of his family with regards Hacienda Luisita and its distribution multiple times over time. In one of them, he defended the SDO option by saying that his family wanted to first make sure that the land that would eventually be distributed to the farmer-beneficiaries are cleared of debt. This one was made quite last February 9, 2010. That same day, he is reported to have stated that he has already talked with his family and relatives from his maternal side to find ways to implement the distribution of land to the approximately 10,000 farmer workers before the expiration of the agrarian reform law ends in 2014.

However, four days earlier while campaigning in Davao City, he is reported to have said that the question of Hacienda Luisita will be a difficult issue to resolve even if he wins as president because it is supposed to be a private corporation. Perhaps, Noynoy’s changing statements are not at all unexpected, given that he is in the midst of his presidential campaign and election periods are always the time for making promises.

What is troubling is the report of the New York Times that counters Sen. Aquino’s claim that his family has been cooperative with regards the issue of distributing Hacienda Luisita.  In its March 16, 2010 issue, the American publication quotes Fernando Cojuangco, the chief operating officer of HLI and the sugar mill as having denied there would be land distribution. Responding to Times reporter Norimitsu Onishi’s query, Noynoy’s cousin reportedly said:  “No, we’re not going to. I think it would be irresponsible because I feel that continuing what we have here is the way to go.”

SCTEx Luisita Insertion &Overprice?

Beyond the non-distribution of Hacienda Luisita, the reclassification of much of the lands, and the actual conversion of 500 hectares into the Hacienda Luisita park 2 sans consultation with their “co-owners,’ the farmer workers, is the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) Luisita interchange diversion and overprice issue.

The SCTEx is P32 billion-worth 94-kilometer four-lane expressway north of Manila, Subic Bay Freeport Zone in Zambales as its southern terminus and the Central Techno Park in Tarlac City, Tarlac as its northern terminus.  It is aimed at boosting efforts to promote the former Subic and Clark military bases as freeport zones. A SCTEx interchange passing through the middle of Hacienda Luisita and leading directly to the  private road in the hacienda’s Central Techno Park was constructed by the government at the cost of P170 million.

The House Congressional oversight committee is looking into allegations that the San Miguel/Luisita interchange portion of the SCTEx is an expensive political accommodation for the Cojuangco-Aquino family. The said interchange is said to have been that benefitted Noynoy’s kin not only in terms of the link to the free zones but also in questionable direct monetary compensation of P83 million for the right of way (RoW).

Questions have been raised as to whether the controversial interchange was part of the original plan for the expressway. The Daily Tribune reports that project documents shown the newspaper clearly show:

...that the costly interchange to nowhereland was inserted into the projected sometime before it went through a bidding in 2004, at a time when Gloria was preparing for reelection and was trying to woo the late Cory Aquino for active support against then strong opposition candidate Fernando Poe Jr.

The irregularity and inappropriateness of paying the Cojuangco-Aquinos for the right of the way for the interchange have also raised eyebrows. Cavite representative Crispin Remulla cites that the Luisita interchange RoW is the opposite of the usual practice: Asia Brewery, Greenfield Corp, Mamplasan, and Southwoods all donated eight hectares each and paid P241 million even for the construction of their interchanges that exit on the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

Even worse, payment for the RoW seems to have been grossly overpriced. During a congressional hearing, a Department of Agrarian Reform official confirmed that the RoW paid by the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) for the HCI was overpriced. By how much? By around P70 million, because sugar lands are valued only at about P150,000 to P170,000 per hectare, instead of the P1,000,000 per hectare that was actually paid.

When the issue first came to light, Noynoy’s camp tried to make it appear that the SCTEx was forged during President Joseph Estrada’s time, seemingly suggesting that the anomaly found today was of the making of the deposed president. The truth is while Estrada initiated the SCTEx, the whole contract back then was only worth P15.73 billion–and didn’t include the San Miguel/Luisita interchange. Under the administration of Arroyo, the “President” installed by Noynoy, Cory, the Liberal Party and the rest of the seditious mob of EDSA 2, the SCTEx ballooned to more than double its original project price.

While Noynoy claims, through his spokesman, that he “did not participate in any meeting relating to the [SCTEx] project; neither did he lobby for it in any forum,” other accounts tell that he actually did much lobbying. What is undeniable is that he was Deputy House Speaker at the time and he had the means to influence a needlessly expensive irregular project that benefitted them. The presidentiable’s possible role is, of course, on top of Cory’s pre-July 2005 influence on the administration of Arroyo.


Questions. Questions.

With regards Hacienda Luisita, Noynoy seems to be condoning the actions of his family–what others could describe as theft of a land that the government has earmarked for agrarian reform. Possibly to confound the public as to the Cojuangco-Aquino family’s real plan for the hacienda and the land distribution issue, Noynoy keeps changing his tune, apparently in the bid to win votes for his presidential ambitions. What should then be taken instead as a more reliable gauge of whether he’s not ‘criminal’ are his actual actions in the past.

Cory’s son may only control around 1/32 of the HCI shares but that should not have prevented him from castigating the November 16, 2004 massacre and subsequent assassinations of individuals connected to the strike or the strikers.  Has he taken any step towards finding justice to the seven victims of the violent dispersal of the 2004 Hacienda Luisita strike? Perhaps, one can ask: did he help mastermind the carnage? As it is, the wheel of justice doesn’t seem to move towards the victims of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre and Noynoy has been of no help.

Doesn’t Noynoy smell the crime of corruption in his family’s Hacienda Luisita deals?

When management offered the option of SDO to the farmer workers, did he speak out against it as essentially being non-distributive and, thus, in violation of the spirit of social justice? When a SCTEx interchange exit was constructed to lead to Hacienda Luisita, when all 10 others lead to public roads/complexes, did he lift a finger to oppose preferential treatment, or didn’t he actually lobby for it?

Did he find it irregular that his family had to be paid a whooping P83 million by the government for Hacienda Luisita’s right of way (RoW) for the interchange, when the normal course is for the government to charge private entities for connecting their industrial complexes or properties to major public roads? Isn’t he aware that it is virtual standard operating procedure for any private land owner to donate a portion of their lands just to have a highway interchange lead to their properties?

Makes one wonder if Noynoy got surprised at all that the government had to assume construction of the interchange connecting their estate to SCTEx because every educated big-time landowner such as him knows that along with the right of way donation, it is the private estate owner that foots construction of such interchange?

In the first place, should not the entire Hacienda Luisita, except perhaps for their residential area, have been distributed to the farmers as actual land in keeping with the true spirit of agrarian reform and with the principle of its 1957-1958 acquisition? long ago? Doesn’t Noynoy find it criminal to sell what is morally not theirs?

Perhaps, the ultimate question is: doesn’t he find it plunderous that he and his family have held on to Hacienda Luisita when they should have long divested themselves of the property and distributed it “at cost” to farmers as was the condition set by government half a century back?


Averse to Criminals?

So who’s more criminal between Noynoy and Erap? Of course, Sen. Noynoy Aquino has not yet been charged, much less “convicted” for any of the issues/charges I’ve laid herein. The Hacienda Luisita land issue, if ever, will only be a civil case. For all we know, he’ll never be found guilty ever. Or, farfetched as it may seem to the Hacienda Luisita farmers and his detractors, Noynoy and his extended family might not have been guilty at all of anything unholy.

So back to my main point. The late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, the anti-Martial Law hero, was a convicted murderer. The former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, the ‘Father of the Masses,’ is a convicted plunderer. So why has Noynoy’s “principles” not made him decry, even just as a matter of historical note, Marcos’decision to let Ninoy fly to the US?

The yellow presidentiable, along with his family, has attacked Martial Law many times in the past, but he never once castigated Ferdinand Marcos for letting his convicted ‘murderer’-father free and be able to leave for the US. Of course, Marcos was a dictator; but Noynoy’s 2001 bet Gloria Arroyo is Illegitimate. If it can be argued that Ninoy’s conviction was rendered by a kangaroo court, so was Erap’s. It’s not hard to realize that the power grabbing EDSA 2 President arranged to have Estrada convicted of ‘plunder’ so as to make her rule appear legitimate.

It is clear is that Noynoy has no moral right to question Erap’s pardon since he has not done the same to the case of his father, the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino.

Noynoy used the idea of “principle” to argue his belated opposition to Erap’s pardon. He might as well be talking of the unholy principle to depose a democratically elected President at will. Or take part in the cover-up, if not in the actual operations of electoral fraud for the presidency. Plunder government wealth to the tune of over 250 million, perhaps? Or to conspire with family members and corrupt government officials in denying farmers of their agrarian reform rights?

Ultimately, Noynoy’s apparent aversion to ‘criminals’ might as well extend inwards–to aversion to himself and his kin.

P.S.
By the way, it is on record that Sen. Aquino sought former President Estrada’s blessing when he first ran as senator in 2007 under the Genuine Opposition coalition party. Erap recounts how Cory interceded and asked the favor of dropping her sister-in-law, former Senator Tessie Aquino Oreta, so Noynoy can be accommodated in the party’s senatorial slate. After having used the former President’s help to win a Senate seat,  Noynoy is now attacking the pardon two years after the fact. Doesn’t that reek of political opportunism? Sounds like the Liberal Party standard-bearer has”principles” built on opportunistic clay.

Legend:

*(Already, 3,290 hectares have been reclassified while 500 hectares have already been converted into the Luisita Industrial Park 2).


_____________


by Jesusa Bernardo

References &  Images @SOBRIETY for the PHILIPPINES

Who did Dacer & Corbito: Lacson, Estrada or Ramos?

THE Dacer-Corbito double-murder case has been described as one of the coldest murder cases of the century in the Philippines.  Robert “Bubby” Dacer, a public relations who served as a consultant for then-President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, went missing along with his driver Alex Corbito in November 2000. The National Bureau of Investigation  (NBI) under Dir. Reynaldo Wycoco promptly produced “evidence” of charred bones-without-skull remains and two farmer-witnesses, one of whom supposedly wore “Dacer’s shoes” (as it  turned out, it was neither Dacer’s nor Corbito’s).

It has also been one of the most politicized criminal cases in the history of the Southeast Asian country. Fidel Ramos, Estrada’s predecessor, was the one who first alerted the media and the police as to the possible fate of Dacer. Ramos was to accuse the Erap administration with responsibility for the alleged crime of kidnapping and murder of the PR man and his driver.

The case was subsequently used as one of the issues in the anti-Estrada movement propaganda campaign and continued to be a hot issue even after the ouster of the former President. The case particularly hugged the headlines until early 2001 and once again in 2009, highlighted by the September privilege speech “bombshell” of  Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) under the Estrada administration.

Lacson has now been formally charged with the double-murder, based in part on the affidavits of his former men in the now-defunct Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF)–but not before a host of whodunit articles in the media and blogosphere mostly pointed the accusing fingers at Estrada. The many questions and twists in the case, along with the propaganda-level biases in the media and blogosphere, beckon the sober to carefully sieve through the many tales and try not to get the country burned by the politically motivated fires of deception. Using the criminal justice investigative basics of evidence, motive and opportunity, who most likely perpetrated the dastardly double-murder—Sen. Lacson, ex-President Estrada, or the one who first told the world about it, ex-Pres. Ramos?

Who was Dacer?

Bubby Dacer was “a Sultan of Spin,” a publicist of the Philippines’ rich and powerful, accepting PR work both for the guilty and the clean or innocent figures including politicians, policemen and soldiers, business and people. His list of clienteles included the last two former Presidents, then-Vice-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and gambling tycoon Dante Tan. During the first year of the Estrada administration, Dacer served as a sort of unofficial “meetings facilitator” whose requests were always approved by the President.

According to an ABS-CBN report, his career is said to have reached its pinnacle during the administration of former President Fidel V. Ramos. Dacer’s professional life was, perhaps, also most controversial back then as he was instrumental in the rebidding of the Subic port management deal in behalf of the International Container Terminal Services. The deal had already been won by Hutchison Whampo of Hong Kong  when Ramos’ order for a new bidding prompted the disgusted businessman to hastily pull out.

Inimical-to-RP SGS Contract

Dacer also earned some adverse publicity for his role in procuring the government’s deal with the giant Swiss customs surveillance/’trade services’ firm Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS  S.A.), which was valued at a staggering amount of $100 million annually. The customs contract involved “pre-shipment inspection” (PSI), which has been described as a “global racket” involving players, some of which have been convicted of bribery of high Third World officials.

The publicist defended the contract forged during the Ramos administration by claiming that the company deserved the huge fee because the resulting rise in customs revenue collection and decrease in smuggling more than compensated for the amount. President Estrada subsequently cancelled the controversial customs inspection deal, reputedly one of SGS’s most lucrative PSI contracts. Erap’s government reasoned that the expensive contract has actually not really saved money for the Philippines.

Antonio Lopez writes in the 2000 article, “Gone Missing: The abduction of a prominent PR man raises disturbing questions,” that in his job as spin doctor for the powerful entities, Dacer might have “made some powerful enemies — there are plenty who might want him dead.”

Witnesses and Evidence?

Back in late 2000 and early 2001, when the media loudly played up the “murders” of Dacer and Corbito and danced to the tune of Ramos’ public accusation that the Estrada administration was behind the supposed crime, questions and loopholes marred the official evidence presented.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) headed by Reynaldo Wycoco presented in November 2000 two farmer-witnesses, Jimmy Lopez and Alex Diloy, who pointed to officers of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) as responsible for the twin crime. They pointed to charred bone-and-teeth remains in Indang, Cavite, claiming that policemen killed Dacer and Corbito by strangulation and subsequently set the bodies on fire.

Lopez claimed to have assisted in making pyre from tires and wood. However, a family friend who visited the supposed crime scene, Fr. Gabriel Baldostamon of the Sun Valley parish church in Paranaque, noticed that the pyre site was too small to burn two adult human bodies. The Daily Tribune’s Ninez Cacho Olivarez also questions how an improvised cremation can be possible with such a small amount of tires and coconut tree wood and in so short a time, as recounted by the witness.

Questions have also been raised as to the reliability of the first witnesses, or whoever was behind them. A salient loophole concerns the brown shoes Diloy was wearing on the day the NBI “arrested” them and which the witness claimed to have been taken as crime booty by one of the policemen and given to them.

Because Dacer only wore white, Diloy claimed he dyed it brown. However, based on ex-Sen. Ernesto Maceda’s account in the Manila Bulletin, one of the Dacer children denied the shoes were their father’s since he never wore “topsider.” When Diloy retorted that it must have been Corbito’s, the wife also denied ownership, saying the shoe size was too big for her husband.

Herein, it is worth noting that the issue of the ‘mysterious’ shoes reveal the apparent bias of some media entities.  The ABS-CBN Dacer-Corbito timeline article published March 19, 2009 claims that Diloy was supposedly wearing Dacer’s WHITE shoes when the NBI took them. However, at least one archived media reports dated March 2001 indicated that the loafers presented by Wycoco’s witness were merely dyed brown.

Conflicting Forensics: Charred Remains of Human or Cattle?

On April 14, 2001, more than three months after President Estrada was deposed, the NBI presented two dental plates and a ring in the creek of Barangay Buna Lejos, Indang, Cavité and which the Dacer children believed were their father’s.

Based on the September 2009 complaint filed by Assistant United States Attorney Jennifer Keene before the Southern Florida District Court “for and on behalf of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,” forensics expert Dr. Raquel B. del Rosario-Fortun of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine supposedly confirmed the charred remains to be those of Dacer and Corbito, and the found dental plates as matching their ante-mortem dental plates.

Lacson’s legal counsel disputes the Fortun findings, belatedly saying that a 2001 forensic testing conducted by the UP Natural Sciences Research Institute (UP-NSRI)–upon the request of no less than NBI’s Wycoco showed that the remains are not human. According to Atty. Alex O. Avisado, the public should know that Arroyo’s government deliberately withheld said findings to hide the truth from the Filipino people.

Avisado speculates that since the UP-NSRI results show the remains as not human, they must have been cattle remains. Thus, Lacson’s camp argues that there is yet no corpus delicti or body of evidence. (It should be noted that Dacer’s and Corbito’s skulls were not part of the supposed charred bones and teeth remains).

Herman Tiu-Laurel of the Daily Tribune echoes this position. He writes:

    …the University of the Philippines Natural Sciences Research Institute [UP-NSRI] stated thus: “Deoxyribonucleic  acid (DNA) analysis targeting the 121 bp intergenic region of the COH and tRNAlys genes of the mitochondrion gave Negative Results for the presence of human DNA.”

    This was the official report submitted to the late Gen. Reynaldo Wycoco, NBI director at that time who was also a political appointee of Mrs. Gloria Arroyo. These results were strangely never given emphasis by subsequent reportage. Instead, dental plates not found by the NBI composite team — composed of dozens of investigators who scoured the crime scene for 31 days — but allegedly retrieved by the hired forensic expert of the Dacer family in a subsequent four-hour search were given more weight.

Estrada  Angle

Before Lacson’s formal indictment last month, many writers of the press and blogosphere had judgmentally insinuated, if not categorically tagged, Estrada as the mastermind behind the twin murders based on clouded accounts of the former President’s link with Dacer. The swiftness of the pointing of accusing fingers at former President Estrada defies logic and criminal justice system basics in which premium should be placed on the establishment of a suspect’s motive even amidst the presence of evidence of the suspect’s DNA sample.  Additionally, a scenario of the deposed President having ordered his kumpadre’s killing would be implausible without including in the picture an act considered as extremely hateful by the former.

What heinous sin could Dacer have committed enough to make his (former) boss to want him dead? The “motive” floated by those painting Estrada’s guilt is that the former President supposedly suspected Dacer, his two-time kumpadre, of being involved in destabilization attempts against his administration.  From an objective viewpoint, it is hardly plausible that a veteran politician like Erap with no prior history of murder raps will pull the trigger (or ask someone else to) on mere rumors. Largely why Erap has not been considered a suspect in the case—at least, not officially–by the Department of Justice all this time is because no clear motive has been established, apart from the lack of non-hearsay evidence.

Estrada’s Motive #1? Prove the Destabilization Conspiracy

If Lacson and segments of the media insist on linking Estrada, they need to present exactly the supposed destabilization acts of Dacer. The PR man’s falling out with Estrada supposedly started when Manila Standard columnist Emil Jurado wrote on March 24, 1999 in identifiable but unnamed terms that Dacer was part of the ‘demolition team’ set up to “for the sole purpose of embarrassing President Estrada by attributing to his administration all sorts of perceived faults and scams with the end in view of covering up anomalies and scams also committed during the Ramos administration.”

If the purported motive of deadly vengeance for a seditious betrayal is to stand, the veracity of the destabilization scheme has to first be investigated. It is ridiculous to assume that President Erap, with all the intelligence resources of the government at his behest, acted only on baseless rumors of political betrayal to have Dacer liquidated.

Oplan Excelsis

The truth of the supposed involvement of the PR man in a coup conspiracy would have to be provided if a scenario of Estrada having masterminded the Dacer-Corbito killings is to be credible. To do that, however, entails proving that a conspiracy against the Joseph Estrada administration was hatched several months before the EDSA II coup ouster of Estrada–which would be a date sometime in 2000 or earlier.

Ninez Cacho Olivarez reported back in October 2000 about the ‘Omerta’ group, which was:

   …composed of representatives of business groups and Catholic Church leaders as well as representatives of celebrated personalities [that] came together and met formally early this month to fine tune the plan to ‘constitutionally’ oust President Estrada under ‘Oplan Excelsis.

As everyone knows now, Erap was indeed constitutionally ousted during EDSA II, deposed in what the New York Times dubbed as “opportunist coalition of church, business elite and left” and what Hong Kong-based political analyst William Overholt report to be “It is either being called mob rule or mob rule as a cover for a well- planned coup.”

The Edsa II Coup

As it stands today, EDSA II players are not admitting to any conspiracy against Estrada (the seeming exception, the late President Corazon Aquino, only went as far as apologizing to ex-President Erap without going into the details of the “uprising”). In fact, the “civil society” of the EDSA 2 infamy claim would like the world to believe the opposite—that the Edsa 2 was a “spontaneous” development. Thus, if the ‘Estrada-ordered-it’ thesis is to stand, Dacer needs to be linked to the Omerta or any destabilization group. If the destabilization/vengeance motive is to hold, the possible Oplan Excelsis link to Dacer, if the conspiracy did occur, should first be established.

Herein, the 2001 revelations inadvertently made by First Gentleman Mike Arroyo by Nick Joaquin during his interview with Philippine Graphic should be investigated. Therein, he admitted to hatching ouster plans (A & B) together with former Ilocos Gov. Chavit Singson and certain active and retired military generals. Estrada had complained of a conspiracy to oust him back in 2000 and following the 2001 EDSA 2 coup, consistently claimed that big business groups, shadowy forces in the military, church leaders and opportunist politicians were behind his ouster.

Without investigating the multiple oust-Estrada conspiracy theories, all insinuations or finger-pointing at Estrada are nothing but demonization of a popular political figure.  Perhaps, media members of the ‘civil society’ need to be reminded that without letting the real and complete truth coming out, genuine justice will not serve Dacer, Corbito, nor the Filipino people.

Dacer’s work & anti-Erap conspiracy

Anyone insisting on Estrada’s possible complicity in the twin murders would need to look into Dacer’s role in Estrada’s government.  How did Dacer’s advisory work with Estrada fit into these foreign and local reports of destabilization conspiracy? The veracity of reports of conspiracy months or a year or more before EDSA 2 should be particularly investigated.

What exactly did Dacer do that supposedly angered Estrada so much to put the former President in killer mode? Since it was PR job he handled, it must have involved important information. In such a scenario, who were Dacer’s connections in the anti-Estrada destabilization camp and what critical information did he leak to them, if ever?

A mid-2000 report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism can perhaps give a clue. It reports that during the early part of 2000, Dacer fell from the former President’s favor, based on how Estrada himself distributed among Cabinet members a white paper tagging Dacer as being "behind 'Oplan DDD' (disinformation, dissatisfaction destabilization) against his administration."

Dacer’s Letters

Ramos’ former National Security adviser Jose Almonte presented the media with a series of Dacer’s letters to Ramos, to Estrada, and to businessman Dante Tan. The subject matters of the Dacer-to-Estrada letters include (1) “Black Propaganda aimed at Driving Wedge Between Us, June 9, 1999,” and (2) “Ping Lacson’ Maneuvers for PNP Director-General Post, Oct. 8, 1999.” Herein, two questions need to be asked: have the letters have already been authenticated, and by whom and how? How did they end up in Almonte’s hands?

The Daily Tribune’s Olivarez asks where Almonte got the letter in which Dacer expressed apprehensions over getting the ire of both President Estrada and Lacson. ABS-CBN.com, which published the letters, reports in an article first posted online last September 2009 but which cover developments as of 31 January 2001, that the “PR executive always furnished Almonte copies of his important letters.”

One gets to ask if it was really plausible for Dacer, who seemed to be so professional, to have engaged in such an act that breaches the trust and privacy of the then-incumbent President Erap? If ever, why would the PR man’s loyalty be with Ramos instead of the President, his kumpadre, whom he was then working for at that time or several months before?

Estrada’s Motive #2?

Hazy or unspecific posts also connect Dacer’s death to his supposed knowledge of corruption in Estrada’s government. At Midfield posted in November 2008 that there was a talk that circulated about his “having been murdered in connection with documents in his possession.”  A host of media and blog items has speculatively but categorically pointed to Estrada as mastermind of the supposed slaying of Dacer and Corbito.

The scenario such reports of “talk” and “rumors” seem to make is that Estrada had Dacer killed so as to prevent the expose of his supposed corrupt deals. To  be able to convincingly establish this possible motive, however, entails ascertaining  the veracity of his alleged possession of damning confidential information and, as well, of determining whether Dacer did engage in political espionage.

One would have to ask if it was in line with Dacer’s character to betray his clienteles, given that until early 2000, Estrada much trusted the PR man and allowed him considerable influence in his government (then-Appointments secretary Veronica Bunye-Jose said that back then, Erap always approved Dacer’s requests).

Dacer, SGS man, an Anti-Corruption Lone Ranger or Ramos spy?

It defies logic that a publicist used to spinning facts for the PR sake of clients, whether clean or otherwise, suddenly turned moralist and betrayed a kumpadre and big-time client all on his own. How is it possible than the man responsible for the multi-million-dollar SGS deal that proved heavily disadvantageous to the Philippine government all of a sudden became an anti-corruption lone-ranger crusader, as the anti-Estrada write-ups on the twin murders want the people to believe?

A more plausible scenario that would support an Estrada murder motive would be that Dacer was a Ramos DPA (deep penetration agent). After all, it is no secret how Ramos strongly disapproved of Estrada’s ascendancy as President. In 1999, a Senate Blue Ribbon investigation produced the testimony indicating that the people at the Centennial Exposition project were asking contractors for LAKAS campaign contributions because they were “desperate in (sic) coming up with all means and money to prevent Erap from winning in the elections.”

The same At Midfield article reported “about his having intended ‘to disengage’ from a controversial client,” suggesting the client to be no less than Erap. ABS-CBN also published one of the six alleged Dacer letters presented by Almonte in which Dacer sounded like he was ready to shift to Ramos’ side and was just awaiting his former boss’ go signal because Estrada’s government was supposedly “bent on stepping up its efforts to smear the good name of former President Fidel V. Ramos, and undermine his legacy to the nation.” Said letter is dated November 10, 1999 but Dacer actually continued to work for Estrada up to about early 2000.

If the Almonte-presented letters are authentic, the Nov. 10, 1999 Dacer letter raises very serious conspiracy questions when considered in the light of the Senate Blue Ribbon investigations on the Centennial Expo scam. Just why would Dacer speak so glowingly of Ramos who had wanted to prevent the election of President Estrada whom he was already working for or worked for months before? Just why would Erap, who seemed to trust him so much, later accuse him of engaging in ‘disinformation, dissatisfaction, destabilization’ against his government if there was really no conspiracy?

The Dacer letters, if they can be authenticated along with with the At Midfield report, can together be taken as possible support to explore the angle of the anti-Estrada conspiracy theories, with Dacer figuring as a possible DPA. Specifically, this scenario seems to jibe with the Jurado report pointing to Dacer as operator in a simultaneous Ramos corruption scandals cover-up and anti-Estrada demolition conspiracy.

BW Documents tied to the murders?

Crucial to the scenario of the supposed threat of corruption expose as Estrada’s motive for silencing Dacer is the Best World  (BW) Resources Corp. stock market insider trading and manipulation scandal. Investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Philippine Stock Exchange supposedly revealed Dante Tan’s heavy buying of stocks. Tan then reportedly sold them around to artificially jack up share prices and show active trading of the BW stocks. Estrada’s former Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu had testified based on hearsay that former President had 50 percent interest in the company.

The Tan-BW Resources case was actually already dismissed in 2007 for lack of evidence. Early in 2009, the Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision and ordered Tan’s criminal prosecution. This prompted Erap’s son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, to cry foul over the near simultaneous revival of the BW and Dacer-Corbito cases.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that ex-President Estrada’s conviction of plunder in late 2007 included the count of receiving commission for BW stocks. However, the BW evidence presented pointed not to the deposed President but to businessman Jaime Dichavez as beneficiary. Estrada has also consistently maintained that he never touched even a centavo of public funds because his conviction involved jueteng  and that the Special Sandiganbayan Plunder Court was especially created to convict him as a way of legitimizing Arroyo’s power grab via Edsa 2.

It should be noted that after the initial media hypes of the new Arroyo administration in 2001, nothing much happened to the Dacer-Corbito murder case. That Mancao was suddenly extradited and the BW case revived just about a year before the presidential elections raise some politically-colored suspicions. If it’s justice for the Dacer-Corbito families that the administration really wants, why wasn’t the case pursued with gusto much earlier?

Justice Antonio Carpio’s Judgmental Speculations

Current Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio speculated back in 2001 on the motive for Dacer’s murder in his Philippine Daily Inquirer column based on the June, 2001 affidavit of Dumlao, PAOCTF chief of operations. He wrote that:

 “It is possible that… Dacer came to know that Estrada had a substantial interest in BW. Dacer may even have come into possession of documents to prove Estrada’s ownership of BW stocks.” Carpio charged that a “shocking document that has surfaced is a letter by Estrada’s own lawyer, brazenly written on Malacañang letterhead and addressed to Tan, demanding the turnover to Estrada of BW stocks worth over P500 million. This document inextricably links Estrada to the BW stock scam.”

Such a scenario inevitably links back to the conspiracy reports? Are those supposed corruption-related documents part of the reported destabilization efforts? If so, how did Dacer and the information connect to Oplan Excelsis or the eventually successful Edsa 2 coup against Estrada and which installed his other client, Gloria Arroyo? Did Dacer have other spies working with him and against the former President? In turn, to whom was he reporting or to whom will he give the supposed damning documents/information?

 Dumlao’s Conflicting Affidavits Belie the Prosecution

What’s wrong with the old Carpio speculation, which the Inquirer chose to reprint March of 2009, is the fact that Dumlao subsequently refuted the cited statement with his May 2003 affidavit. Therein, Dumlao stated that the government was applying pressure so he would pin down opposition members.

The more recent twists in the case involved two conflicting developments:

   1.  March 2009, the Department of Justice announced that Mancao, chief of PAOCTF Task Force-Luzon supposedly issued a third affidavit wherein he’s affirming the authenticity of his 2001 affidavit.
   2. However, Dumlao canceled his flight back to the country because, as according to his lawyer, the former PAOCTF officer petitioned against his extradition since his written implication of Lacson and Estrada to the Dacer-Corbito murders was made only after he was tortured.
   3. Dumlao was finally extradited in July 2009 and in September 17 of the same year, turned state witness. The motion to drop him from the list of accused in the case is under review.
   4.  On November 11, 2009, his lawyer told the media that Dumlao only signed his affidavit after he was tortured into doing so;
   5. Dumlao’s testimony is not yet complete.

How “final” and reliable will Dumlao’s testimony this time is anybody’s guess. Aside from his conflicting affidavits, 1 or 2 of which he claims to have been made under duress, the former police superintendent has also made conflicting press statements on the case through his lawyers. With regards the letter pointed out in Carpio’s column, it seems unlikely that Estrada would allow such an illegal BW-related request in writing, on official Malacanang letterhead at that.

Apparently, that “shocking document” was part of the later-repudiated first affidavit dated April 2001 which told of important documents being deliberately burned on orders of Mancao (Dumlao’s July 2003 affidavit in effect negated the first statement).

Even if Dumlao will eventually affirm his first affidavit, the statement is in conflict with Mancao’s statement. Dumlao’s first statement claims that his role in the ‘Special Operation’ against Dacer was carried out following the orders of Aquino and Mancao; whereas, Mancao claims that he did not personally engage in the Dacer-Corbito operation.

Out of Dacer’s Character

Speculations that Dacer was silenced because he wanted to expose Estrada’s supposed BW insider trading all on his own does not hold water because the former neither had the history nor the character to crusade against corruption.  In fact, as a PR man, his work involved glossing over his clientele’s public relations flaws or manufacturing a positive public image.  He himself was involved in controversial contracts during Ramos’ administration.

Thus, without the determination of the veracity of the oust-Estrada conspiracy angle and the PR man’s involvement in them, neither of the alleged motives of (1) vengeance over Dacer’s politically motivated betrayal or (2) cover-up of BW/corruption activities can be substantiated.

Without serious investigations of the alleged conspiracy to depose Estrada, all speculations on the former President’s complicity in the Dacer-Corbito killings amount to nothing but trial by publicity or even a vilification campaign/ bandwagon amidst Estrada renewed campaign bid for the presidency.

Proving the conspiracy is easier said than done, of course, because even after nine years have elapsed, those who hold power are in denial mode over Edsa 2. No mainstream Philippine media will seriously write on, and no Edsa 2 player—Ramos in particular—will admit to, any conspiracy in Estrada’s ouster. Still, despite the destabilization conspiracy denial, certain writers continue to illogically, perhaps maliciously link, Estrada to Dacer’s murder.

Estrada’s Opportunity?

Did Estrada have the opportunity to commit the double murder? Nobody seems to think he did it himself so the proper question is, perhaps: Did the deposed President have the opportunity to mastermind the killing?

Aside from the Ramos-instigated insinuations and Mancao’s later hearsay testimony, suspicions are cast on Estrada as being the possible mastermind primarily because of witnesses’ testimonies that link PAOCTF men to the kidnapping of Dacer and Corbito. This scenario assumes that the former President could order about or influence PAOCTF agents into committing illegal acts such as murder.

While it is a fact that Estrada was the one who created the elite crime-fighting unit and that it was indirectly under his command as President, such can hardly be considered an opportunity by itself. To show that the deposed and defamed President had the opportunity to mastermind the slays, his personal connection with PAOCTF operations needs to be established. Lacson’s September 2009 Senate privilege speech seemed drawn up to support this scenario.

Lacson’s Speech Links Erap to PAOCTF Operations

The direction of Lacson’s September 2009 Senate speeches was clearly to move away from his own possible culpability in the Dacer-Corbito double murder. At least in his first privilege speech ‘bombshell,’ he stated that he was essentially not in control of his men at PNP and the PAOCTF because Estrada was giving them “direct orders and instructions [as he did] deep into the layers of the entire government bureaucracy.”

This claim of Lacson seemed intended to effectively cast doubt on any testimony linking him to the murders and, instead, open the door towards directly linking Estrada to the crime. However, this possible angle, or attempt to redirect the case’s investigations appeared to have been weakened by the testimonies of Erap’s former Cabinet secretaries who belied the senator’s claim, saying: “The Cabinet is one in observing and attesting that President Estrada was not a micro manager.”

Mancao’s Testimony: He Cheated for Erap?!?

On Sept. 3, 2009, PAOCTF head for Task Force Luzon former Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao confirmed his earlier affidavit but which only lamely supports the opportunity question for Estrada, given that his knowledge was only based on hearsay. According to him, he knew about the former President’s order to have Dacer killed under codename Oplan Delta based on what he overheard from the discussion of Lacson and Aquino.

The problem with Mancao’s testimony, aside from its being based only on hearsay, is that it came with, or woven into, a claim that sounds incredible. In media interviews, he stated that he and Estrada had known each other personally and that he supposedly even conducted “Dagdag-Bawas” electoral fraud operations under “Special Project Alpha” to ensure Estrada’s victory in the 1998 presidential polls.

That ex-President Estrada needed to cheat in 1998 is a rather unbelievable tale because every independent pre-electoral and exit polls bore out Estrada’s victory. Had Mancao skipped the “cheating” part, his latest testimony would have been worth giving some weight to.

Even Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, the former Defense chief who turned against the former President during the Edsa 2 coup, surprisingly vouched for Estrada’s integrity as he claimed that as far as he is concerned, the latter “had not given [him] any illegal order” during his service in Erap’s government.

Estrada Angle Linked to Conspiracy

The Estrada angle is very much dependent on what the EDSA II players are not admitting to—coup conspiracy against the former president.  If the destabilization/vengeance motive is to stand, the possible Oplan Excelsis link to Dacer, if the conspiracy did occur, should first be established. The next step should be to link Dacer to the Omerta group.

Thus, if Estrada’s vengeance over his believed involvement of Dacer in the destabilization efforts is to be pursued as motive, the following leads should be established:

•    Were the destabilization attempts reported by Jurado in 1999 for real?

•    Did “Oplan Excelsis” and the conspiratorial “Omerta” group exist?

•    If yes to Nos. 1 & 2, how are the two anti-Estrada conspiracies connected?

•    Is the Mike Arroyo account of the EDSA 2 conspiracy also linked to the other conspiracy reports?

•    What was Dacer’s link to any and all of the above conspiracy reports?

•  If ever, who were other members of the conspiracy/conspiracies known to Dacer?

BW Stocks & Dacer Espionage?

With regards the more limited threat of BW/insider trading expose as Erap’s possible motive, a scenario of Dacer being an anti-corruption lone ranger is out of character with his being a practical and not-exactly-come-clean publicist. It does not make sense that Dacer, who worked for Ramos whose administration was marred by several corruption scandals, would find the supposed Estrada BW insider trading windfall worth crusading against—unless he was a spy or demolition team member.

Thus, exploring the BW insider trading angle again brings one back to the determination of whether Bubby Dacer worked as a DPA or spy.  How true are claims by certain media articles saying that Dacer was “secretly working with those planning to depose Erap”? Dacer’s other (former?) clients Ramos and possibly, Arroyo, seemed poised to benefit from an Estrada ouster.  What were the PR man’s exact relationships with them? Given Dacer’s seeming fondness of Ramos as based on the Almonte-presented letters, did the PR man spy for the latter?

In the first place, was there really insider trading at BW? How real is the claim that Estrada earned from the BW stock trading, and if ever, does it tie to reports that the late Sen. Cayetano also profited from BW stocks around the same time? Or did the PR man work for another individual/group?

It must be pointed out that those who conclude or try to make others believe that Estrada indeed masterminded the killings of Dacer and Corbito are generally wont to show that Dacer was innocent of any involvement in destabilization activities and/or that the alleged coup were merely baseless suspicious of Estrada. What counters this part of the vengeance motive scenario is the fact that the coup/conspiracy reports were made independently–by the local Daily Tribune before it took place and by foreign entities including the New York Times in describing the EDSA 2 ouster of Estrada. And, of course, there were the inadvertently detailed revelations of coup plans involving military officers made by no less than Mike Arroyo, husband of the beneficiary of Estrada’s ouster,


Estrada Has No Vengeance Motive?

The opposite scenario–that Estrada did not really have a motive in having Dacer killed–finds support in different testimonies or reports. This appears to hold true within even within a scenario of an anti-Estrada conspiracy actually having transpired.

Estrada-Dacer Make-Up

Estrada claims that he has no reason to have the PR man killed because, for one, he had already met with and made peace with him a few days before he went missing. Tiu Laurel writes that this is supported by a report of GMA-7’s Karen Davila’s whose interview of Ampy Dacer confirmed that Estrada and her dad did reconcile during their meeting over a merienda.

An ABS-CBN article says that according to Dacer’s daughter, the PR man was hesitant to meet with the former President. Rodel Rodis also writes that during their meeting on November 21, 2000, “Estrada severely berated Dacer… and the latter left the Palace in fear of his life.” However, these reports or claims are belied by the Davila interview of Ampy Dacer.

Journalist Fernando Gagelonia’s recollection of Dacer’s last words to him several days before his disappearance can also be taken to support the view that the latter and Estrada were on the way to a patch-up as was apparently what occurred during the meeting in Malacanang. According to the writer, Dacer told him that “Things will be resolved, we’ll be helping each other and the bickering will end.”

Additionally, Mancao’s February 14, 2009 affidavit executed in the United States not only makes no mention of Estrada’s actual involvement in the order for Dacer’s killing but also includes hearsay of the former President having “turned indifferent”(emphasis supplied), with the news that Dacer “had been neutralized.” Granting that the hearsay was factual and that Mancao was not lying in the said affidavit, shouldn’t Erap have reacted with pleasure or approval over the news if he indeed masterminded the double-killing?


Ping Lacson Angle

Sen. Lacson is officially the chief suspect/brains in the Dacer-Corbito case because as PAOCTF head and concurrent PNP chief, he had the means, opportunity, and motive to perpetrate the twin slays. The Department of Justice charged him for the twin murders on January 7, 2010 supposedly, based on physical evidence and witness testimony.

Lacson Means & Opportunity

The testimonies of the early witnesses pointed to the complicity of the PAOCTF men directly under Lacson. Jimmy Lopez even pointed to Lacson as the alleged mastermind (Lopez was killed early morning of September 2, 2009, a day before his scheduled appearance before the Department of Justice to reiterate his allegations and corroborate the Dacer family’s affidavit).

Lacson’s own subordinates Mancao and Dumlao also testified against him, pinpointing the former anti-crime czar as the one who gave direct orders to have Dacer and Corbito killed. Mancao already testified in court against the senator. Dumlao did issue a second affidavit and statement(s) effectively retracting his first statement but what his testimony and cross-examination as DOJ witness will yield remains a matter of speculation, particularly given his penchant to change his mind.

Lacson Attempts to Pin Opportunity/Means on Estrada

As earlier mentioned, however, Lacson’s September 14 privilege speech refuted this means & opportunity angle. By claiming that ex-Pres. Estrada was a micro-manager who personally directed people, including his PAOCTF and PNP men, he wanted it shown that he himself was not involved with his men’s operations—which should include any involvement with the Dacer-Corbito case.

Lacson’s claim that he was not actually the one on top of PAOCTF operations appears lame and uncorroborated. It has, in fact, been belied by Estrada’s former cabinet secretaries who immediately came out to refute that point of the senator’s privilege speech.

Witness Bagual

What could yet be the most damning testimony to prove that Lacson had the motive to have Dacer and Corbito killed can come from a new witness, Lymith Bagual. She said in an interview that she witnessed how Lacson berated Dacer back in November 2000 in a Batangas resort. Bagual claimed to have overheard a furious Lacson, who was seated beside Mancao, tell the calm Dacer: “You’re not following what we agreed on. You’ll get me in trouble.” When Lacson stood up, he supposedly ordered one of his men to get Dacer out of the room but the PR man refused to budge as the driver made a remark to the effect that they’d rather fight to the death.

Lacson refuted the claim of Bagual whom he dubbed as “laundrywoman” during his Sept. 22, 2009 privilege speech. The senator claimed that Dumlao relayed to him that Mancao’s lawyer, Atty. Topacio, asked help to convince the former PAOCTF officer to corroborate the new testimony. He also charged Estrada of being behind the quick production of the new witness and insinuated that Topacio was reporting to the former President.

Herein, Lacson seemed to have contradicted himself because a week before his second privilege speech attack against Estrada, he accused another May 2010 presidentiable Sen. Manny Villar and the Nacionalista Party of possibly being responsible for Bagual’s appearance as witness.

Lacson Motive?

If it can be shown that Lacson did order PAOCTF men to have Dacer and Corbito killed, a corollary question is whether he plotted the crimes on his own. If Lacson is to be pinned down as the mastermind, his motive for perpetuating the murders will need to be established.

Up until about the second half of the year, the only clear possible motive for a possible Lacson masterminding the murders himself came from the letters Almonte claimed to have come from Dacer. Based on the June 9, 1999 and Oct. 8, 1999 letters, it appears that Lacson and Dacer were not exactly in the best of terms—suggesting a scenario where the former might have wanted the publicist eliminated out of revenge.

Lacson might have been angered by Dacer’s opposition to his appointment as PNP chief. Based on the letters, Dacer believed that Lacson was supposed to be one of those engaged in the “black propaganda aimed at driving wedge” between him and Estrada. Moreover, the PR man was strongly persuading Estrada not to appoint Lacson as PNP director-general on grounds of  his insubordinate attitude and how “many foresee a POLICE STATE, and this will be very bad for the domestic economy and set back Your Excellency’s campaign to attract foreign investors.”

In an ABS-CBN news clip, Almonte also showed an unencashed check of several million pesos which supposedly represented Lacson’s offer for Dacer to take his case but which the publicist refused.

The case against Lacson seems to satisfy means, motive and opportunity elements, based on admissible evidence presented or are likely to be presented in court. The question is whether they are strong enough to lead to a conviction, particularly given that there are no actual or complete dead bodies of Dacer and Corbito.

Moreover, are the courts that will try the case apolitical and neutral enough to render due justice? An arrest warrant has already been issued for Lacson, who admits he’s in hiding in another country. The beleaguered senator claims he is being persecuted for his many corruption exposes against Gloria Arroyo and her husband. Interestingly, recent news reports show that the judge who issued the Lacson arrest warrant is a candidate for the position of the Court of Appeals.


Ramos/Almonte Angle

Another angle that is worth exploring in the Dacer-Corbito murders is the possible involvement of former President Ramos and his national security chief Jose Almonte. The mainstream media largely ignores this angle but in the interest of truth, justice, and fairness, it ought to be explored.

Late for an Hour—Disappeared!

Ex-President Ramos’ public role in the Dacer-Corbito murder mystery began on the day the publicist went missing. On November 24, 2000, Ramos hastily announced to the world that he feared Dacer had disappeared because they were supposed to meet an hour ago.

Surprising as it is, Ramos made the announcement and tipped the police of Dacer’s disappearance only after anhour of their scheduled meeting. Even more surprising are other stories that connect Ramos to the developments of the case.

1.      Herman Tiu-Laurel reported in March 2001 of the story told to close friends by Ampy and Sabina, Dacer’s children:

 “...the Ramos visit to Dacer’s office on that fateful day of the disappearance was very uncharacteristic. In the many years of Dacer and Ramos’ professional dealings, never once did Ramos visit Dacer’s office. But on the day of Dacer’s kidnapping Ramos did, and after only an hour of waiting he started making it too obvious he was concerned….”

2.      Perhaps, the most explosive story linking Ramos and ex-national security chief Almonte to the case is the revelation made by Fr. Baldostamon of the Sun Valley parish church in Paranaque where the Dacers reside. According to News Today (April 11, 2001):

    Soon after the November 24, 2000, abduction of Dacer and Corbito, Father Baldostamon overheard … Almonte tell the PR man’s family that in case the kidnappers return Dacer to Almonte’s group, “they would try to sneak him out to the USA.” In any case, Almonte reportedly said on December 3, Dacer’s family should continue to mourn for him in public “until the opportune time.’ Why would anyone make such a proposal unless he had some way of influencing the victims’ abductors?

3.      On April 16, 2001, Cacho-Olivares writes: “And wonder of wonders. The day the Dacer children claimed that their father was indeed dead, Ramos had, in the newspapers, a condolence note, claiming too, that Dacer was dead.”
 
4.       Tiu-Laurel also later reported the account of his friend that two days before Dacer disappeared, the PR man complained “that he was being evicted from his Manila Hotel office and he couldn’t update his rent because Ramos (FVR) owed him a six figure professional fee and wouldn’t pay up.”

Today, nine years after the Dacer-Corbito disappearance, the Ramos, along with Almonte, has yet to squarely address the many questions on his role in the case.  Worse, the NBI has never considered Ramos a suspect.  The mainstream media has played along, pretending such questions never exist while insinuating, if not actually accusing ex-Pres. Estrada of guilt (the same more or less applied to Lacson more or less until he switched over to the side of another presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino).

Even the Dacer children have surprisingly failed to confirm or deny Fr. Baldostamon’s statements. No wonder  that less gullible bloggers and media practitioners continue to ask whether former chief –of-staff ex-Pres. Ramos wields too much influence to the point that genuine truth and justice are being denied not only the Dacer-Corbito families but, as well, the Filipino people.

Dacer & Corbito Are/Were Alive?

Amidst the UP NSRI DNA findings and the parish priest’s revelations suggesting that Almonte’s camp could make Dacer surface or continue hiding him, the government should look into the possibility, no matter how seemingly remote, that the supposed victims are still alive.

Corollary to this, Ramos, who is closely tied to Almonte and who holds no less motive and potential means as Lacson and Estrada, should be seriously investigated. His suspiciously very hasty reporting of the disappearance of Dacer on the day they are supposed to meet can perhaps be taken as opportunity for the crime.

There are a number of evidence that merit investigating ex-President Ramos’ involvement in the Dacer-Corbito case. Perhaps, the evidences are weak—as weak as those linking former President Estrada to the same case; however, shouldn’t they be also be looked into in the full pursuit of justice not only for the publicist and his driver but for the Filipino people as well?

Ramos’ role in Anti-Estrada Conspiracy?

Almost as much as the Almonte letters present possible evidence of motive for Estrada, they do the same for Ramos. How come Dacer regularly provided Almonte with copies of important official communications, especially those from the office of President Estrada?  Such a scenario Almonte wants the people to believe is weird even among best friends. This is unless Dacer was a DPA or seditious spy working for Ramos.

If Dacer was Ramos’ spy, the PR man could have taken part in illegally providing the latter or other Omerta/destabilization group members with confidential Estrada documents for use in the reported OplanExcelsis that apparently saw fruition in EDSA II. This, in turn, raises questions as to Ramos ‘ possible motives for wrecking the Estrada administration: did he fear Estrada’s pursuit of his previous administration’s corruption cases or what?

Another possibility, perhaps, is that the Almonte letters were not voluntarily given by Dacer to the former security adviser but, rather, taken by Ramos during his ‘uncharacteristic’ visit to the publicist’s PR office on the day of his disappearance–if Tiu Laurel’s report is accurate. As well, it is also not entirely impossible that Ramos made up at least some of the letters using the letterhead stationery he could have taken from Dacer’s office that same day.

These facts, along with the absence of corpus delicti, should be enough for the criminal justice authorities to at least look into the direction of the FVR/Almonte camp. If it can be reasonably established that there was indeed Oplan Excelsis or any ouster conspiracy at works a few months before Dacer’s death, the possible FVR involvement should be extended to include other anti-Estrada conspirators in the twin murders, or twin disappearance.

Ramos’ Role in the Dacer-Corbito Murder?

Whether or not the supposed destabilization conspiracy can be conclusively proved, a scenario where Ramos masterminded the crime–either hiding the PR man and his driver (A) or actually murdering Dacer and Corbito (B)–is not implausible. It has, after all, been established that Estrada and Dacer did have cordial merienda in Malacanang.

A.    Ramos Hid Dacer & Corbito?

 Under the Ramos scenario A of hiding Dacer & Corbito, the possible motive is linked to that of Estrada’s and can be established by ascertaining the veracity and details of Oplan Excelsis/destabilization conspiracy. If there was indeed a conspiracy, scenario A jibes with the Jurado articles’ claim that the destabilization was meant at “covering up anomalies and scams also committed during the Ramos administration.”

B.  Ramos behind Dacer & Corbito Murders?

It is possible that after the Malacanang merienda, Ramos might have feared that Erap was able to secure Dacer’s services to effectively proceed with the plan to go after FVR’s role in the alleged Centennial Expo scam. If the conspiracy wasn’t real, this Ramos scenario B can stand on itself because Estrada had publicly announced this plan several times, enough for Ramos to become worried.

Another possibility is that Ramos had Dacer and his driver silenced AFTER Estrada was already ousted.  Farfetched as others may think, Fr. Baldostamon’s revelations point to the possibility that Ramos might have made it appear that the latter was missing so the former can blame and scandalize the Estrada administration, as an effective part of a conspiracy to bring it down. Admittedly, this scenario makes an unlikely assumption that the two were still alive—at least during the height of the report of their disappearance during the last months of the Erap administration.

Of course, it does not sound plausible that after a decade of being missing, the PR man and his driver could still be alive. However, it is also a possibility that Ramos and Almonte–if they did have Dacer–might have ordered the two liquidated some time after Estrada was already ousted so as to cover up their tracks.


The US Role

The participation of the government of the United States of America in this case is also worth looking into. Concededly, the US government has always interfered with internal Philippine affairs but it has not actually shown much interest in murder stories until this one.

In the case of the Nida Blanca slay, the US courts twice rejected the Philippine government’s request to extradite the prime suspect, her husband Roger Lawrence Strunk. Of course, Strunk was an American citizen (before the creep committed suicide). Still, the Dacer-Corbito case seemed to have been considered exceptional enough for the US government to have been much too helpful opening the door for the return of Mancao and Dumlao (the US government arrested the two upon RP government’s extradition requests).

It’s also rather suspicious that Dumlao “voluntarily” provided the US government with information on the twin murders because why he fled to the US was obviously due to his intent to avoid the case. Also, how normal is it for the American government to do what it did in the case of Aquino–US Attorney Christopher J. Christie asked the court for a higher sentence because of his involvement on the Dacer-Corbito case based only on some testimonies and with the twin murders still very much unresolved?

The case is obviously political but the apparent US political interest in its resolution can further cloud the truth as to who the real perpetrators and mastermind are. As Tiu-Laurel wrote back in March 2009:

Reliable military intelligence sources we talked to insist that the affidavits of Mancao and Dumlao will implicate Estrada, as what Michael Ray Aquino’s will later do. They are convinced that this campaign, which involves the US, vividly betrays Uncle Sam’s fear of Estrada as being the only serious obstacle to its 2010 plan of installing a new Gloria Arroyo puppet…..

If indeed the US is unduly interfering in the Dacer-Corbito case, that would render the testimonies of the PAOCTF men half-truth as best. If it’s also true that the ultimate goal is get Estrada smeared and make him less viable for the 2010 presidential race, how will the public ever be certain that Ramos and Almonte indeed had no hand in the twin murders?


Non-Body of Evidence?

Normally, murder cases can advance only if the corpses can be found. While there are witnesses claiming to have perpetrated the killings on orders of Lacson’s men, even pointing to the actual site of the crime and the disposal-by-burning of the bodies, the two DNA results in this case squarely conflict with each other. While Dr. Fortun’s analysis concluded that the charred remains belonged to Dacer and Corbito, the UP-NSRI findings yielded negative presence of human DNA.

If the prosecution can only produce non-human remains as evidence, based on the UP-NSRI report, it should render the testimonies presented by Wycoco’s witnesses as seriously questionable. It is, of course, up to the courts to decide which DNA analysis is more credible and determine whether the charred remains presented by the NBI are truly the victims’ or mere cattle/animal remains.


Veracity of Testimonies

The veracity of testimonial evidence should, of course, also be looked into. The reliability of the early witnesses who claimed participation in the crime is marred by the ‘Dacer shoes’ claim. Alex Diloy is now dead but his testimony before the Justice Department stands–including perhaps his false claim of ‘brown-shoes-but-formerly-white’ which he showed the press belonged to Dacer, or to Corbito.

Dumlao recanted his 2001 testimony (a basis of Lacson’s indictment), which is where a number of speculators base their malicious imputation of the guilt of Estrada. He is supposed to have made a later testimony affirming the first but through his lawyer, he issued a November statement claiming that he only linked Estrada and Lacson because he was tortured. Besides, Dumlao’s reliability as a witness could be questionable given the multiple times he has changed his mind on the matter. As well, his claims that the government only tortured him into issuing affidavits against Lacson and Estrada suggest that the case is politically motivated.

Mancao’s testimony, marked by his denial of criminal involvement, links Lacson and Estrada to the case but is pure hearsay. Fr.  Baldostamon’s expose is also hearsay but can easily be corroborated or denied by the Dacer children. Mysteriously, both the camps of the Dacers and Almonte have chosen to keep mum over the issue; more perplexingly (or is it suspiciously?), the Arroyo administration has not bothered to even look into the angle.


Conclusion

The media and bloggers owe it to the Filipino people to speak or write only of the truth. If it’s genuine justice for Dacer and Corbito they want, all possible angles or leads should be discussed without favor or without prejudice to anyone. That the Ramos angle has been hardly explored despite leads pointing to him, while Lacson and especially Estrada have been practically judged as guilty by writers, certainly does not serve the dissemination of truth and justice in this country. At the same time, glossing over Dacer’s possible role in a conspiracy against the Estrada government also does not do justice to the Filipino people.

That government officials–including the politicians who wanted Estrada ousted back in 2000/2001–have politicized the case also seems evident. A disturbing recent news is that the judge who signed the arrest warrant for Lacson is a candidate for a Court of Appeals post. Perhaps more disturbing is why Arroyo’s government has ignored or even kept under wraps the UP-NSRI findings which conflict with Dr. Fortun’s report with regards the question of whether or not the charred remains found in Cavite belonged to Dacer and Corbito.

The Filipino people, especially those with a history of gullibility (as in EDSA 2 mob gullibles), should be wary of those entities whose business it is to misshape public opinion by deliberately withholding selected information. Unfortunately for Dacer and Corbito, justice for them seems as evasive as political justice and journalistic objectivity in this country.

________

by Jesusa Bernardo

+-40(!)  References @ SOBRIETY for the PHILIPPINES

Fallen Young Red Fighter Kemberly Jul Luna - Within the context of the EDSA 2-Arroyo/Ramos-CPP-NPA connection

THE death of 21-year-old Kemberly Jul Luna caused quite an uproar in the activist and leftist circles. Jul was a popular, charming, merry, and yes, beauteous, true-blue scholar ng bayan with multiple talents and interests from the Mindanao State University (MSU). She died a comrade, a member of the New People's Army (NPA), the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), during a days-long battle with the military in Sitio Bulacao in Valencia, Bukidnon last December. Her tragic, principled (or ideological?) death made me ponder on the current state of the communist movement in the Philippines.

"Kimay"

Called "Kimay" by friends, she was a high school valedictorian from Tubod, Surigao del Norte who enrolled in AB English at MSU. True to the calling of her age, she initially lived what the Philippine Daily Inquirer described as "bon vivant lifestyle" marked by late-night parties. Despite, she still managed sustained academic performance and a host of campus cultural activities. Intelligent, active, party-goer, yet socially involved, Kimay was once a leader of the Catholic Center Campus Ministry and member of the Kalimulan cultural dance troupe until she embraced the leftist perspective.

In February 2008, she became an active member of the League of the Filipino Students. Supposedly, that was the time Kimay "shed herself off of all the petty-bourgeois individualism." By the first semester of school year 2008-2009, she was chosen as adhoc chairperson of MSU's opposition party, STAND-IIT.

Came second semester and she did not enroll as she completely turned to a very radical path. According to STAND-IIT spokesperson Mark Jason Tan Cesar, "She wanted to serve the poor and she was very resolute. She told us that she wanted to work with the peasants in the countryside. There was no stopping her.”

October of the same year, she bravely took part in uncovering the impact of militarization and indiscriminate aerial bombing of war-torn Tagoranoa village in Poona Piagapo in Lanao. She then engaged in full-time work organizing peasants as she reportedly joined the province-wide KASAMA-Bukidnon organization January of 2009.

Young, Scholar of the Masses, NPA, Dead

In August 2009, she informed friends that she left KASAMA-Bukidnon, saying only that has developed greater love for the peasants with every passing day she lives among them. She became an NPA.

Kemberley was reported missing in mid-December 2009 by human rights group KARAPATAN-Bukidnon Chapter. When her body was found days later, it was already much decomposed and dumped with those of seven other alleged NPAs in the forest of Brgy. Concepcion.

CPP-NPA & 'National Liberation'

Columnist Herman Tiu-Laurel laments and questions Kemberley's death, saying that "She follows a long line of fallen young warriors over the past five decades which include several of my own friends and comrades. Is this still the right way to fight for national liberation?"

For its part, the Communist Party of the Philippines released a press release saying:

Her martyrdom is extolled as well by the peasant masses whom she intimately lived with and served as a Red fighter and medic of the NPA until her last day... Her life of tireless work and selfless sacrifice for the downtrodden will forever be etched in the hearts of those she loved, worked and died for.

Unholy Mix: CPP and EDSA 2

I'm not exactly endorsing the path July chose to take. I do respect her decision because the depth of her patriotism led her to offer and sacrifice her youthful, promising, beautiful life in pursuit of her conception of 'national liberation.'

However, the organization she embraced, the CPP-NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines of the present time, to my mind, showed itself too flexible principle-wise when it took part in EDSA II--what a foreign media outfit described as "the opportunist coalition of church, business elite and left....". I expected better from Jose Maria Sison's group, as I remember questioning back then why they would even consider joining forces with those of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and former President Fidel Ramos whom then-President Joseph Estrada wanted charged for the Centennial Expo and other corruption scandals.

While I don't subscribe to any form of totalitarianism, whether left or right, or religious, I've harbored respect not only for the personal conviction and sacrifice of its members but, as well, for the underground organization's principles. Back in 1985-86, the Philippine communist movement was chided for its decision not to support or join the EDSA I (original) "People Power" Revolution. The 'culprit' was its strict adherence to its principles such that the movement was unwilling to compromise enough to accommodate the unified opposition led by Corazon "Cojuangco" Aquino and Salvador "Doy" Laurel.

Arguably, the CPP-NPA should not have merely stayed at the sidelines during the historic 1986 Edsa 1. Definitely, to my mind, the Philippine Reds should NOT have shifted to opportunist mode during Edsa 2 which aimed for nothing but oust the not-entirely-clean but, nonetheless, relatively patriotic and nationalist Estrada.

By taking part in the ouster of the pro-masa and genuinely elected Erap by coalescing with unquestionably fascist and elite elements, the local communists have indicated their dangerous adoption of what can be seen as counter-revolutionary strategy and anti-populist mind frame at will.

Gloria Arroyo, Part of Joma’s Foresight?

Then again, is it possible that the CPP-NPA calculated that a Gloria Arroyo presidency would be more conducive to their goals? Way back before Gloria was able to grab the presidency, she was without question already a fascist, even imperialist agent.

Along with then President Ramos, Senator Arroyo was responsible for Philippines' membership in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO) in 1995. She was also the principal author of what has been called "the most environmentally-hazardous law of the land," Republic Act 7942 or the 1995 Mining Act, which permits foreigners a hundred percent ownership of the country's mines.

Compare Gloria to Estrada, who, despite the latter's agreement to the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), nonetheless braved neo-imperialist foreign interests by removing sovereign guarantees on government contracts. Did CPP-NPA leader Joma Sison figure that replacing the rather 'uncouth' but popular and pro-masa Estrada with 'fascist' Gloria Arroyo could speed up their brand of national liberation struggle?

2008 Mindanao War: Gloria, Kimay & Joma

It's been speculated that Arroyo virtually cooked up the October 2008 war in Mindanao to present an excuse to declare Martial Law in the country and extend her term scheduled to end in June 2010. Her administration signed the Memorandum of Agreement-Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) with Muslim rebels while well aware that such dismemberment of the Republic won't be allowed by the Christian community not only in Mindanao but in the capital. According to an October 2008 Malaya editorial, the MOA-AD is an "elaborate charade... [apparently designed] to provoke the MILF into going back to war as what is happening now" after the Supreme Court TROed the agreement.

A few months after seeing first-hand the horrors wrought on Davaoenos by the Mindanao war , Kemberly advanced from full-time peasant organizing to become an NPA. Wonder if Joma Sison foresaw Gloria's Illegitimacy would turn the 2001 power grabber into a devil-may-care megalomaniac, thus inadvertently serving as a hopefully effective NPA recruiting machine?

The last paragraph in the January 8, 2010 CPP press release on Kemberley Jul Luna's death reads:

Let us pay tribute to Kimay by amplifying the call for student, youth and other activists to join the New People's Army. As the people's revolution gears for greater advances, there is a growing need for more youth and students and activists from the other sectors to sign up as Red fighters, combine with the peasants and workers and contribute to carrying out the tasks of people's war with unprecedented vitality.

EDSA II - Part of Joma's Foresight, or Plain Mob Crazy?

It is a fact that the Arroyo administration is credited with the most number of salvagings, desaparecidos, and human rights violations in Philippine history, largely targeting the activists and socialists. Has the Philippine Left been had by Arroyo and Ramos when its members supported the EDSA 2 ouster of Estrada?

Or did Joma, et al. chose to avoid a more progressive administration to advance its “people’s war”? I’ve long harbored the suspicion that why Joma’s group went against Erap and took the side of the clearly fascist (or more fascist) Arroyo and Ramos was because Estrada’s ‘bakya‘ or masa appeal presented a strong competition in winning the masses, whose support they need in order to further their war style towards national liberation.

Of course, I could be wrong. I hope I’m dead wrong.

Then there’s the possibility that neither applies for the 2001 Edsa coup. If I remember accurately, broadcaster Korina Sanchez-Roxas commented back in early 2001 as to what could have possibly brought about Edsa 2, saying something like “It’s as if a cloud of something descended upon the people who took part in it.” It is not entirely impossible that the Edsa II people simply went mob crazy. So crazy they went the side of Centennial-Expo-defensive Eddie, ‘Tabako’ Eddie....

________

by Jesusa Bernardo

References & Images at: SOBRIETY for the PHILIPPINES