By Rey E. Requejo

THE Justice Department is working to get two more witnesses to have five people testifying on the murder of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver eight years ago, its top official said yesterday.

The department so far has three people who could testify on the case. Dacer was abducted in broad daylight with his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, on the South Superhighway on Nov. 24, 2000, and by people believed to be members of the police force.

Their charred bodies were found four days later in a creek in Indang, Cavite.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said he had ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to hunt down “Police Col. Arnedo” and a driver, who were both involved in the murder.

“I think he [Arnedo] has a very big role here. The name of that fellow figured well in earlier testimonies,” he said.

Arnedo would be able to corroborate the statements of former police officials Cesar Mancao and Glenn Dumlao, Gonzalez said, adding the driver who had brought Dacer and Corbito to Cavite was also a possible witness.

Mancao is expected to be extradited from the United States this month to testify on the case.

The former police officer has executed an affidavit implicating high government officials in the case, but he has asked the Justice Department to send NBI agents to fetch and mind him and not turn him over to the police.

Dumlao, another former police officer involved in the case, is also in the United States facing extradition. He had surrendered to Reynaldo Berroya, then head of the Intelligence Group, before he fled to the US in 2001.

Berroya, another witness, is now general manager of the state-run Metro Rail Transit Authority. Berroya said Thursday that Panfilo Lacson had planned Dacer’s killing, and that Lacson had also wanted him dead.

“When he surrendered to me, Dumlao confessed that it was Lacson who ordered the hit on Dacer,” Berroya said.

“Dumlao also told me that Lacson [also] ordered that I be assassinated as well.”

Dumlao and Mancao had both worked for Lacson, who was then serving under President Joseph Estrada as head of a police task force against crime. He is now a senator.

Lacson and Estrada both denied involvement in the case even before Mancao’s affidavit could be made public. Estrada was driven from power in 2001 and convicted of plunder in September 2007, but he was pardoned by President Arroyo a few weeks later.

Gonzalez said Arnedo and the driver had not been mentioned in an earlier investigation by the Justice Department.

“They were the ones who gathered the firewood for the burning of the bodies,” he said.