A United States District Court ordered Thursday the extradition of former Filipino police officer Michael Ray B. Aquino to the Philippines after establishing probable cause of his involvement in the double murder of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and Dacer's driver, Emmanuel Corbito, more than nine years ago. In a one-page order dated March 4, 2010, the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark approved the Philippine government's extradition application for Aquino. Magistrate Judge Esther Salas of the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark also certified Aquino's extradition “to the [US] Secretary of State, together with a copy of all evidence received for this matter.” The court will issue a warrant authorizing the commitment of Aquino, so that he may be held until his surrender to the proper authorities. The order ends Aquino's nearly three-month wait after his extradition hearing of the case started last Nov. 23. As soon as Aquino is extradited to Manila, he will be facing a court trial along with 22 others originally accused in the double murders. A full-blown trial, however, would have to wait pending the arrest or surrender of Senator Panfilo Lacson, who has gone into hiding in other countries after being charged in the murders. Former President Joseph Estrada had denied any part in the murders conspiracy. An e-mail message from this reporter, seeking comment from Aquino's lawyer, Mark A. Berman, remained unanswered as of this posting. In determining the probable cause against the 43-year-old decorated police officer, Salas “found the affidavit by Glenn Dumlao to be critical.” Dumlao was Aquino's subordinate officer in the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), which was constituted on July 22, 1998, following the presidential election of Estrada. The PAOCTF, designed to “combat criminal syndicates both in public and private sectors,” was headed by Lacson, a police general-turned-senator, who directly reported to Estrada. Aquino, who served as chief of operations division, reported to Lacson. Beginning January 1999, Aquino “tasked” Dumlao to monitor Dacer in his office housed at a Manila Hotel room. Then, Aquino ordered Dumlao “to surreptitiously enter the room, take whatever documents he could find, and also instructed Dumlao to monitor the individuals that were visiting Dacer.” When Dumlao failed to “obtain any useful information,” Aquino was “alleged to have instructed Dumlao to either burn down or bomb Dacer's hotel room.” Later in October 2000, Aquino summoned Dumlao intending to revive the Dacer investigation that had gone cold. When Dumlao told Aquino that he was preoccupied with other matters, Aquino said he would assign (former Police Chief Inspector Vicente) Arnado to the Dacer investigation. Judge Salas believes that when another police officer Cezar O. Mancao II, a police superintendent and chief of Task Force Luzon, “questioned Aquino about Arnado's special operations task, Aquino responded that this was something that would be taken up with Lacson.”
