By Antonio C. Abaya

My dirty mind tells me that, since nothing of significance happens here without a reason or ulterior motive, the ongoing probe of the Legacy Group of Companies and its profligate founder Celso de los Angeles, and the forthcoming revelations of Cesar Mancao regarding the double murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver are directly related to the 2010 presidential elections.

It does not mean that the political figures who may be found to be involved, either as perpetrators or as beneficiaries of the crimes under scrutiny, are mere innocent victims of political machinations or deliberate demolition jobs.

If they are guilty of the crimes imputed, or about to be imputed to them, by all means let them squirm in their seats as the spotlights focus on their alleged misdeeds. Too bad if they are presidential contenders and the negative publicity reduces their chances of being elected in 2010.

Cesar Mancao was formerly a senior superintendent in the Philippine National Police and member of its elite unit, the Police Anti-Organized Crime Task Force or PAOCTF, together with Senior Supt. Michael Ray Aquino and Supt. Glenn Dumlao. All three of them were accused of abducting and murdering Dacer and his driver in November 2000.

 All three were under the command of then PNP general, now senator, Panfilo Lacson, presidential contender in the 2004 elections, now a declared candidate for 2010. Mancao and Aquino surreptitiously skipped the country in July 2001 and fled to the US.   

 Aquino is serving time in federal prison for illegal possession of classified documents, a form of espionage, which documents were apparently stolen from the desk of Vice President Dick Cheney in the White House by Leandro Aragoncillo, a Fil-Am US Marine who was playing double-agent, for Cheney and the neo-cons as well as for Philippine opposition figures led by former President Joseph Estrada and Senator Lacson.

Mancao is expected to reveal the mastermind of the double murder. And that could only be, so the betting goes, either Estrada and Lacson, not by coincidence two of the six or seven leading contenders for the presidency in 2010. Both Estrada and Lacson have publicly professed their innocence several days before Mancao?s affidavit has been released.

 Initial leaks to media suggest that several unnamed Estrada officials are indeed implicated in the Dacer double murder. Since Lacson was a high-ranking ?Estrada official,? he cannot assume that he is not one of those implicated by Mancao.

In addition,  Mancao will undoubtedly be milked for all the toxic information that he may have on the Kuratong Baleleng, in which 12 gang members were apparently summarily executed and to which Lacson has also been linked, as well as the disappearance of casino video cameraman Edgar Bentain who had taken footages of Estrada gambling away at the casino.

Bentain?s body is believed to have been stuffed into a 55-gal drum containing fresh cement and the drum thrown into the lahar-swollen Bacolor River in Pampanga. A military officer once told me that when they searched the river for Bentain?s remains, they found, not one, but nine, 55-gal drums with human remains inside. So apparently this was the standard operating procedure of the people who had exterminated Bentain.

But, as usual with criminal investigation in this country, no one followed up logical leads such as identifying the nine skeletal remains through dental records and DNA analysis to look for and find a pattern in the gangster-style executions. Perhaps this will also come out in Mancao?s testimony.

If Estrada and/or Lacson is/are implicated?and this is a big IF?in the Dacer and other murder cases, this would or should  be the end of their presidential plans in 2010, assuming that the hero-worshipping, church-going, squealing masa can be convinced that murder is indeed both a dastardly crime and a mortal sin.

If not murder, how about mega-swindles involving hundreds of millions of pesos of the hard-earned money of hundreds of thousands of depositors in rural banks, that were apparently squandered by the man at the top, to finance his extravagant lifestyle and to bankroll the political campaigns of favored politicians, including Vice President Noli de Castro in 2004?

My sense is that the story of Celso de los Angeles has not been fully revealed. But in the March 9 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, we are told that of the P487 million in deposits placed with the First Interstate Bank (FIB)?one of the 13 shuttered banks belonging to the Legacy Group of companies?only P1 million was left, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The BSP has filed a second case of syndicated estafa?or swindle?against De los Angeles and some of his executives. ?The 13 rural banks of Legacy that closed down in December 2008 for being insolvent and for engaging in unsound practices had a combine deposit base of P15.9 billion. Of the amount, P14 billion could be covered by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.? That leaves P1.9 billion in deposits of thousands of depositors lost and unrecoverable. ?Legacy?s shuttered pre-need firms have obligations of P1.1 billion to some 50,000 plan holders?..?

?Among the assets of De los Angeles, who is also the mayor of the town of Sto. Domingo, Albay, are a yacht, two posh houses [one of which has an artificial waterfalls] and four luxury cars. ?..?

?The first syndicated estafa [charge] that the BSP filed on Feb. 26 against De los Angeles and other Legacy officials involved deposits worth P1 billion siphoned off from the Rural Bank of Darbci.

In the March 10 issue of the Inquirer, we are told that the Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. (LCPI), the shuttered pre-need company of the Legacy Group of companies, bought a house and lot at BF Homes Subdivision in Paranaque City for P5 million that an SEC commissioner? identified as Commissioner Jesus Martinez?gave to his son. The SEC is the government agency that oversees and regulates the operation of pre-need firms.

 Another LCPI official said that the pre-need firm also paid Paranaque Rep. Eduardo Zialcita P1.8 million in ?consultancy fees.?

And so another parade of questionable relationship between Big Business and government regulators that mimics the worst practices in Wall Street vis-a-vis the business community which eventually wrecked the financial system. In both cases, the big bosses paid themselves enormous salaries and fat bonuses, while the little guys with modest deposits or mortgages in arrears loses their money or their home.

The ultimate question in all this is how much did Celso de los Angeles spend to finance the electoral campaign of Noli de Castro in 2004? De Castro has publicly acknowledged that De los Angeles did bankroll his campaign then.

With such a shady character backing Noli de Castro up with the money of swindled depositors, can the hero-worshipping, church-going, squealing masa be convinced that swindling is a dastardly crime and a mortal sin? Does he have the moral ascendancy to become president of this tortured land?

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