Michael Ray Aquino jailed in NBI

EXTRADITED Former Senior Supt. Michael Ray Aquino, a suspect in the 2000 murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, arrives in handcuffs at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Los Angeles. His mug shots were later taken by authorities. RODEL ROTONI

Ten years after he stealthily left the country, Michael Ray Aquino on Sunday returned home to the brutal glare of news cameras and straight into a detention cell occupied by a suspected kidnap gang leader and alleged murderers, swindlers and thieves.

In handcuffs and heavily guarded, the former police intelligence officer insisted on his innocence and on the innocence as well of ousted former President Joseph Estrada and Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson in the 2000 twin murders of a well-known publicist and the latter’s driver.

“I want the Filipino people to know that [former] President Joseph Ejercito Estrada [and] Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson did not order me to kidnap, harm and/or murder anyone,” former Senior Superintendent Aquino said in a statement read by his lawyer and written in a mix of English and Filipino.

“I have nothing more to say because I don’t have any knowledge (about the killings),” he said, referring to the murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and Dacer’s driver, Emmanuel Corbito.

Reporters and cameramen dogged him on his arrival at 6:40 a.m. at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2—a scene quite unlike his flight to the United States a decade ago when no one was around to capture his departure and no one in the media had any idea of where he had gone.

A Philippine government request to the United States for Aquino’s extradition cleared the way for his turnover to Philippine custody.

At the National Bureau of Investigation offices where he was taken after his arrival, Aquino was photographed and fingerprinted, then examined by a doctor, as part of the regular “processing” of detainees, NBI spokesperson Cecilio Zamora said.

Aquino was then taken to the NBI’s “regular” jail—a barred, 20-square-meter cell—where suspected kidnap gang leader Rolando Fajardo, charged with the kidnapping of Japanese businessman Noboyuki Wakaoji in 1986, was also being held.

The cell is also occupied by 20 criminal suspects facing charges of murder, estafa, robbery and other crimes, Zamora said. Aquino was the 22nd detainee.

The cell is located in the same detention facility where Maguindanao massacre suspect Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr. was previously held.

‘High risk’ detainee

Zamora said the NBI was treating Aquino as a “high risk” detainee.

Estrada sounded vindicated when asked for his reaction to Aquino’s statement denying the former President was involved in the Dacer-Corbito killings.

“From the very start, I have no knowledge of anything that happened because Bubby is my kumpadre,” Estrada said, maintaining he was fond of Dacer.

He denied allegations that Dacer was killed on his order. “I didn’t give orders to him (Aquino). In fact, even my Cabinet members, I gave them the freedom to run their respective departments,” he said by phone.

Lacson did not reply to text messages and calls. Recently, he said Aquino’s return “is favorable to me.”

Guarded all around

When Dacer and his driver were killed, Aquino was a senior superintendent and former intelligence chief of the now-defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), then headed by Lacson, under the short-lived Estrada administration.

Dacer and Corbito were snatched from their car on the boundary of Manila and Makati on Nov. 24, 2000. They were found strangled in a creek bed in Cavite province. Their bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned. Investigators identified their corpses using dental records.

Wearing a pale shirt, black jacket and cream slacks, Aquino arrived from Los Angeles on Philippine Airlines Flight PR 103. Five NBI agents guarded him on all sides.

Supervising agent Jesus Manapat and lawyer Claro de Castro of the NBI’s Foreign Liaison Division escorted him from the United States.

Handcuffs covered

Aquino’s handcuffs were covered by a brown jacket. He smiled as he descended on the escalator but did not speak to the media. At one point, Inquirer photographer Jess Yuson snapped a shot of him pouting.

Airport sources said Aquino sat at the last row of the Boeing 744 plane, sandwiched between De Castro and Manapat.

Upon landing, NBI agents and airport police escorted him to the presidential lounge and then to a waiting NBI vehicle.

Airport security cordoned off the lounge to prevent reporters from getting closer.

The Inquirer spotted more than a dozen NBI agents waiting at the ramp outside the lounge as early as 3:30 a.m. Some agents wore bullet proof vests and helmets, and carried pistols aside from M-16 rifles. Trained dogs sniffed around.

Older, thinner

A senior NBI official remarked: “Ninoy (Aquino’s monicker in the police service) looked older and thinner than the last time I saw him.”

In a statement read by lawyer Manuel Joseph Bretaña III, Aquino said his life while on “self-exile” was the “most trying and challenging years of my life.”

He stressed that he did not have “any knowledge of, and participation and involvement in the Dacer-Corbito case.”

Simonette Sibal-Pulido, another Aquino lawyer, said her client was “tired, but relieved that he’s now here to face the charges against him.”

“He will be cooperating with any investigation,” she said.

Aquino surreptitiously flew to the United States in June 2001 after he, Lacson and other police officers were implicated in the killings.

Aquino settled with his wife and son in New York, where he studied to be a nurse to start a new life.

Arrested in US

American authorities, however, arrested him in 2005 due to an espionage case where he was accused of illegally accepting classified US secret documents. Prosecutors alleged the documents were stolen as part of a plot to overthrow then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Aquino pleaded guilty in 2006 to possessing secret documents and sentenced to a 76-month prison term, later reduced to time served.

Lacson also fled the country shortly before the Manila Regional Trial Court ordered his arrest last year. He surfaced in March after the Court of Appeals ordered the dropping of charges against him for insufficiency of evidence.

Aquino said his coming back was an “opportunity to clear my name, prove my innocence and finally put to rest all speculations about me.”

Why he fled

Aquino said his being “falsely accused” for the killings did not surprise him. What hurt him, he said, was when his family was dragged into the problem. He said it was then that he decided to leave the Philippines along with his family.

“I sacrificed my career in exchange for freedom, uprooted my family and went on self-exile and pursued other goals,” he said.

Asked if Aquino’s previous relationship with NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula could be a factor in how he would be treated, Zamora said: “Director Gatdula’s responsibility now has no bearing with their previous relationship.”

Like Aquino, Gatdula was a known subordinate of Lacson as operations officer of PAOCTF.

Threats to Aquino

Bretaña said he would file on Monday a petition with the Manila Regional Trial Court to allow Aquino to be detained temporarily at the NBI instead of the city jail.

Pulido cited “general threats” against Aquino, saying the former police officer had been instrumental in the arrest of several criminal suspects. She said it would be safer for Aquino to be detained at the NBI.

Gatdula deployed more than 100 agents to secure the NBI compound on Taft Avenue.

Sunday afternoon, a visitor who described himself as an “old friend” of Aquino’s but who declined to give his name to the media, visited him at his cell. Later, the visitor told reporters that upon seeing him, Aquino “became emotional.” With reports from TJ Burgonio and Maricris Tamolang