MANILA, Philippines — The lawyer of Cezar Mancao II, who has testified against Senator Panfilo Lacson in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, has lashed out at the solicitor general for not taking action on a Court of Appeals ruling calling Mancao an “untrustworthy” witness.
Mancao, a former aide of Lacson and a former member of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) — which Lacson headed during the Estrada administration — had implicated Lacson and colleague Michael Ray Aquino, another former member of the PAOCTF, in the 2000 murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
The Dacer-Corbito murder hearings had been stalled at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32 as presiding Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina received in November a Supreme Court decision once again upholding an appellate court decision dismissing charges against Lacson and calling Mancao’s testimonies “hearsay.”
The Dacer family had asked the high court to review and overturn the Court of Appeals decision in February. The high court denied the Dacers’ petition in June and junked with finality a motion for reconsideration in November.
Topacio, in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said the Supreme Court decision was only based “on a technicality.”
“It was the Dacer family who made the appeal instead of the Solicitor General, for reasons known only to him. It was the Solicitor General who should have made the appeal because he’s the lawyer of the state,” Topacio said, at the sidelines of the Balitaan sa Tinapayan media forum on Sunday.
“The Solicitor General has a lot of explaining to do on why he did not make the appeal, considering this is a double-murder case. Did he not appeal because Lacson is an administration ally? He should explain that to the Filipino people,” the lawyer urged.
“We should take the solicitor general to task,” he said.
The Dacer-Corbito hearing will continue at the sala of Bunyi-Medina on Wednesday. The Manila judge is expected to issue a ruling on the motion for discharge as state witness filed by Mancao.
Senior State prosecutor Phillip Kimpo, however, expressed in an earlier interview that Bunyi-Medina would probably have to follow the Supreme Court decision dismissing Mancao’s credibility as a witness.