Pressure tactics FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 08/16/2010

Pressure tactics

FRONTLINE Ninez Cacho-Olivares 08/16/2010 From recent developments, it certainly looks like fugitive Sen. Ping Lacson’s men who are today in position and power, are attempting to get their former boss freed from murder charges, prior to his return home — but cleared and thus, with no arrest warrant waiting for him. Over the weekend, Ferdinand Topacio, lawyer of state witness on the double murder case of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, former Philippine National Police Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao, accused the National Bureau of Investigation of harassment for detaining him at the NBI and take his client into custody. The NBI is headed by a close aide and former subordinate of Lacson, NBI Chief Magtanggol Gatdula. When he was appointed NBI chief by Noynoy Aquino, the issue of Gatdula’s closeness to his former boss, already a fugitive, surfaced, but Gatdula claimed that he was a professional, and that his ties with his former boss will not stop him from doing his job. If that is so, why then would the NBI want to detain Mancao, a free man, and a state witness who is moreover under the witness protection program, and take him under NBI custody? Besides, none of these NBI officers or agents would attempt to place Mancao under NBI custody without orders from Gatdula.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100816com2.html

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