In the last column, I said some people in power are probably having sleepless nights over the possibility that two suspects in the Dacer-Corbito murder case might spill the beans on them.

Publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, were abducted during the time of President Erap.

Former police superintendents Glenn Dumlao and Cesar Mancao are facing extradition in US courts on the request of the Philippine government for the two to face trial in the much-publicized double murder case.

Although the victims’ bodies have not been recovered, some suspects have talked and said the bodies of the two were burned after they were strangled.

The murder allegedly took place in a secluded area in Cavite province.

Most of the suspects in the Dacer-Corbito case now in custody are from Cavite, home province of former chief of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

All the suspects were members of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), a parallel organization within the Philippine National Police (PNP), which Lacson also used to head.

The PAOCTF was a special group that duplicated the functions of all the other PNP special units, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the various regional commands.

The Dacer-Corbito case was probably not the only one that allegedly involved the PAOCTF.

Some people I have talked with say the group could have been involved in the disappearances of police Supt. Eustaquio Mallilin Jr. and casino employee Edgardo Bentain.

Mallilin, who was always armed, was abducted by unidentified men after he came out of a nightclub in Quezon City during the Erap administration.
The PAOCTF reportedly suspected Mallilin of being involved in illegal drug deals.

Bentain was suspected of being the source of a video tape showing then Vice President Erap playing cards in a VIP room at one of the casinos.

The videotape was handed to Manuel “Manoling” Morato, Erap’s political nemesis, during the 1998 presidential campaign.

Like Dacer and Corbito, the bodies of Mallillin and Bentain were never found.

Now, who could have the motive for the disappearances of Mallilin and Bentain?

Your guess is as good as mine.

* * *

There’s a Filipino saying, “Walang sekreto na hindi maibubunyag (A secret will get exposed eventually).

Many years ago when I was a reporter for the defunct Times Journal, I met and befriended then Constabulary 1st Lt. Panfilo Lacson of the Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group.

In one of our conversations, Lacson said he subscribed to the saying, “Crime does not pay.”

Lacson appears to have foretold something.
But what that “something” is, I don’t know.