UPDATED: Glad to be of service, HTL

UPDATE: at the bottom of the post

a Herman Tiu Laurel article digs deep into the Philippine Politics 2010 archives to shed more light into the now relevant (again!) Dacer Corbito case.

UPDATE: Isingit ko lang ito (from apr 2001)

A Ping on the political radar
By Herman Tiu Laurel

Senatorial candidate and KFR-buster (Kidnap-for-Ransom) Ping Lacson was in the crosshairs of the GMA-Ramos propaganda gun. Last week, two events pulled him out and moved him into the radar screen of unbeatable candidates. First was the open declaration of support by the group of kidnap victims led by Robina Gokongwei and, secondly, the explosive revelations from Fr. Gabriel Baldostamon, C.P., parish priest of the Dacer family. The tormentors of Ping have the tables turned on them. GMA, Ramos and Almonte should now be running scared.

The Dacer children, Ampy and Carina, have also come out to deny the alleged violent altercation between Estrada and Dacer at the latters visit to Malacañang. This demolishes the premise anti-Estrada propaganda and Ramos Dear Eddie letter from Dacer tried to establish. Dacer and Estrada reconciled in that Malacañang meeting, the Dacer children Ampy (who was at that meeting) and Carina insist. All these buttress my theory that Ramos knows more than he is saying about Dacer's abduction.

For those who have not read Fr. Baldostamon's revelations, here's a brief summary: Soon after the disappearance of Dacer, Fr. Baldostamon heard Ramos henchman Joe Almonte broach an idea to Dacer's children. Almonte proposed that Dacer's abductors could be negotiated with to return the PR man alive but would demand that he be spirited out to the U.S. The family would continue to mourn for him as if he had never been found. Fr. Baldostamon has no self-serving motive for coming out with this, an angle that sends a chill up our spine.

Bishop Teodora Bacani, one of the few trustworthy Catholic priests around, who helped Fr. Baldostamon break the story asks: why was Almonte interested in helping hush up a Dacer return. It would have made the opposition to Estrada quite heroic if they had shown Dacer was kidnapped by Estrada or Ping, as the GMA-Ramos propaganda machine wanted us to believe. We can only conclude from Fr. Baldostamon's story that Almonte wanted to protect some people not identified with Estrada and, most likely, identified with the anti-Estrada forces.

Hundreds of thousands of Inquirer and TV news watchers, Edsa II fans mostly, have been led to swallow the black lies dished out by the GMA-Ramos propaganda machine. There have been a few e-mails from bimpo journalists castigating me as an Estrada paid hack because I questioned the official Dacer story and propaganda against Ping Lacson. These bimpo journalists are the most pitiable of the ignoramuses in Manilas intelligentia, waging militant crusades for a free press but incapable of freeing their minds from propaganda.

Fr. Baldostamon's story implicates Almonte, and where Almonte is, Ramos cannot be far behind. This supports the theory we were first to bring out at the height of the controversy over Dacer's disappearance. My contention was that the January 20 Coup plotters had the most motive to shut up Dacer. Dacer was working with the coup plotters, but after the Estrada reconciliation and P 30 million paid (according to eye witness accounts) for changing sides, he became a hot potato for the plotters. He knew too much and had to be put in the freezer. Then, the disappearance would be blamed on Estrada.

GMA-Ramos had to keep distracting the public thereafter, holding up red herrings to throw off the scent. The People Power mob, led by the likes of Etta Rosales, Teddy Casiño and Bill Luz, like stupid bloodhounds that they are, just kept tracking the odor of the red herrings and not the real tracks of the culprits. But truth will out, as the saying goes. Truth cannot forever be smoke-screened out of the broader public vision. Not all are as stupid or deliberately self-blinded as the Edsa II mob. Fr. Baldostamon, Robina Gokongweis, Ampy and Carinas stories all finally came out.

More related dacer stuff from Ellen Tordesillas.

UPDATE on March 25, 2009: Bishop Ted Bacani's 2001 article revealing Almonte's statements to the dacer children.

4/5/01

BISHOP’S MOVE Teodoro Bacani Jr., DD

I WANT to share what two people have told me regarding the Bubby Dacer case in the hope that they may be of help toward its solution.

Fr. Gabriel Baldostamon, C.P., parish priest of Holy Rosary Parish in Parañaque City, where Bubby lived, shared the following with me on Tuesday. He said that soon after the kidnapping of Dacer, he heard Joe Almonte tell Dacer’s family that in case the kidnappers should return him to Almonte’s group, they would try to sneak him out to the USA. In such an eventuality, he told Dacer’s family to keep on mourning for him in public (as though he had not been found. Father Gabriel explained) until the opportune time.