MANILA, Philippines ? Eight years after the brutal murder, four US-based daughters of publicist Salvador ?Bubby? Dacer have formally accused opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson of ordering the killing of their father.

In a complaint-affidavit filed Friday in the Department of Justice by their lawyers, the four women also accused Lacson of directing his men to cover up the crime when he was chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Lacson insisted he had no hand in the killing of Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, and said in a phone interview: ?Kung mayroong kinalaman ang mga tao ko, hindi naman ako ang pinakamataas na opisyal.? [If my men were involved, I wasn?t the most senior official.]

When asked if he was referring to then-President Joseph Estrada as being the official higher than him, Lacson said: ?I am not accusing anybody.?

Estrada declined to comment when asked for his reaction on the action taken by the Dacer daughters. He has also repeatedly denied being involved in the twin killings, which occurred in November 2000.

Mancao affidavit

The four daughters ? Carina Lim Dacer, Sabina Dacer-Reyes, Emily Dacer-Hungerford and Amparo Dacer-Henson ? based their complaint on the sworn statement http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090320-195104/Mancaos-affidavit
executed by former police senior superintendent Cezar Mancao II, which claimed Lacson ordered Dacer?s murder.

?It is clear from the [Mancao affidavit] that Senator Lacson ordered the killing of our father,? the Dacers said in the complaint.

Mancao, himself an accused in the Dacer-Corbiro murders, executed the affidavit in the US on Feb. 14. He is expected to turn state witness upon his extradition from the US.

Mancao said he was riding in Lacson?s car the month before the murders when he personally heard Lacson supposedly order the principal accused in the case, then-senior superintendent Michael Ray Aquino, to kill Dacer and then-police official Reynaldo Berroya, a Lacson nemesis.

Mancao claimed he was in front of the car, seated beside the driver, when he heard Lacson and Aquino talking in the back seat.

Before Lacson gave his supposed order, Aquino had said his men wanted to hit Dacer first because Dacer had drawn Estrada?s ire, Mancao said.

Aquino and Mancao were then senior officers of the Presidential Anti-Organized-Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), which Lacson also headed at that time.

Mancao said Lacson later ordered him to handle the investigation into the disappearance of Dacer and Corbito to facilitate the cover-up.

He said Lacson later ordered him and Aquino to leave the country to evade prosecution.

?Axe to grind?

The Dacer daughters said it was clear from Mancao?s affidavit that the PAOCTF had conducted ?special operations? outside its mandate.

?Senator Lacson?s complicity in the murder of our father and Mr. Corbito is shown further by his appointing Mr. Mancao as head of the investigating team in the case to allow the PAOCTF ? to cover up the involvement of PAOCTF personnel,? they added.

The Dacers said Lacson had ?an axe to grind? against their father, who had opposed Lacson?s appointment as top cop.

?Our father strongly opposed Senator Lacson?s appointment as chief of the Philippine National Police during the Estrada administration,? the Dacers said.

?This is expressed in one of his letters to then President Estrada,? they added.

They said their father told them a few months before his disappearance on Nov. 24, 2000 that if something happened to him, ?there should be no one else to blame but Senator Lacson.?

The daughters also accused Lacson of obstructing the arrest and prosecution of the criminal offenders with his supposed order for Mancao and Aquino to leave the country.

?Senator Lacson even consistently met with Mr. Mancao and Mr. Aquino in the US from October 2001 to September 2003 and provided for them. This makes Senator Lacson criminally liable for violation of Presidential Decree No. 1829,? they said.

Documents submitted to the Department of Justice showed the Dacer daughters swore on their affidavit on March 23 before lawyer Leandro Lachica, a Philippine consul in New York.

Lawyers from the law firm of Ongkiko, Manhit, Custodio and Acorda submitted the Dacers? affidavit and other supporting documents to Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who said the complaint-affidavit gave basis for the reopening of the double murder case.

?If the prosecutor finds the complaint meritorious, then he can already set the case for hearings,? Gonzalez said in a telephone interview.

A complaint-affidavit is not yet a formal charge. State prosecutors still have to determine if it is backed by sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of a case in court.

?The real story?

Lacson said the Dacer daughters were ?gravely mistaken? and ?misguided.?

In a text message, Lacson said he respected the right of Dacer?s family to seek justice. But ?in their desire to seek justice, they will be committing a more serious injustice by implicating me in the crime.?

Addressing his family, friends and supporters, the senator reiterated he had nothing to do with the twin murders.

?And so long as truth and evidence will be the basis in resolving this case, I have nothing to fear,? he said.

Lacson reiterated he had personally investigated the double-murder case and that he had an idea about what the real story was (?kung ano ang storya talaga?).

Asked whether he would present his findings if a formal charge was filed against him, he said: ?I might as a matter of defense.?

Lacson said he had talked with a lot of lawyers who told him that Mancao?s affidavit had ?no probative value? and would not stand in court without corroboration by witnesses, including his other ex-police aide, Glenn Dumlao, and his former driver, Sgt. Reynaldo Oximoso.

That is why Oximoso is now a target of harassment by authorities, he said.

Lacson said he learned through a common friend that Oximoso feared for his life because of occasional presence of motor vehicles with illegal plates around his home in Bataan province, northwest of Manila.

?Having come from the police service, he [Oximoso] checked on the plates of these vehicles and found either the plates were assigned to other vehicles or there was no record of the plates,? he said.

Among the vehicles lurking around Oximoso?s home were a Ford Everest SUV, a Starex van and a Toyota Revo van, he added.

Lacson?s lawyer Alex Avisado said: ?We will face the charges in any court. We just hope that those people who will resolve the case [at] the Department of Justice will be really independent.? With editing by INQUIRER.net