PART 7
      'how many were actually police assets?'

       Rolando Dacillo, 47, rent-a-car driver testified that he walked, together with his wife that rainy night to watch a movie at the Ayala Center. Of all nights, he chose that particular rainy night to walk from his house in Sitio Camagong to Ayala Center just to watch ANACONDA, a one hour and thirty-two minutes thriller. He testified that he saw, on his walk back to his house at 11 o’clock that night a “taxicab colored red and a white car” about 20 steps from he and his wife and witnessed that the white “car was shaking as if somebody was quarreling inside and I heard a shout of a woman saying:  “Don’t”.

               
FINDING the truth was a painful process in the 1998-1999 trial of the accused Paco Larrañaga (about to stand), Ariel Balansag, Alberto Caño, and brothers James Andrew and James Anthony in this file photo of Cebu's "rial of the decade".
                                                    ..........from Cebu Daily News September 23, 2004
    He also claimed that a woman alighted from the car and that the driver grabbed her and “pushed her back to the car.” He also heard the woman saying “Tabang intawon”, “Please help me”.

     He recognize the girl to be Jacqueline “because after one (1) week of the incident I saw her picture through the Sun Star and that was really the woman I saw who alighted from the car and I saw also her face when she was pushed back inside the car.” 

     He also recognized Josman Aznar, since he knows him because “I saw him twice already….. “last week of June (1997)…. at Fuente Osmeña for the first time”,  more particularly “at Croissant Snack Bar” and the second time “at the time when Jacqueline was kidnapped.” 

     What is hard to believe is that this witness saw Aznar only once before and still recognized him. No one in court asked him how he could still remember Aznar’s face out of the many people frequenting that particular snack bar.

       Earlier witnesses testified that they saw Aznar, Jacqueline, Marijoy and Larrañaga talking as early as 7:50PM and until 9:00 P.M. in the West Entrance of Ayala.

       However, this witness did not testify seeing them when he and his wife entered Ayala Center to see the movie. Since he claimed to have remembered Aznar from one previous sighting and Jacqueline from the same Sun Star newspaper ad, mmmm

and presumably Marijoy, since she was also in the same ad, he failed to mention this in court.

      More importantly, this witness conveniently failed to mention during the trials, that in truth and in fact, he was actually a police asset of SPO3 Roy Codiñera. Codiñera was the one responsible for “convincing” the star witness Davidson Rusia to testify in court the way he testified. 

      In the Sun Star issue of May 27, 2002, Codiñera admitted that Dacillo has been his asset when he agreed to testify against the seven suspects in the Chiong kidnapping case in 1997. “He was instrumental that the case was solved,”  he added.   

     The newspaper further reported:  “Although the Chiong case has been solved," Codiñera said "Dacillo still continues giving him information.” 

     Yet, Dacillo, being a police asset never lifted a finger to help the girl asking for help. He did not immediately report the incident to his handler, Codiñera.

     Remember, he testified that he recognized Jacqueline from the newspaper accounts. Why then did it take him 42 days after the incident to execute an affidavit to this effect.

    The question is how many more police assets were used as prosecution witnesses? Going over the list, many of the prosecution witnesses were either rent-a-car drivers, tricycle drivers or did not have permanent jobs. Most of them did not even have any clear fix address.

    Most of them, outside Redobles, Singson and Konahap, happen to be “passing by” when the alleged crime was said to have been committed.

        No one living within the scene of the crime ever testified, either from the alleged  rape in a busy neighborhood  Guadalupe in Cebu City rape nor from the alleged Carcar rape scene.

        In one instance, during the initial investigations of the people working  in the store where it was  claimed one of the suspects bought a bottle of wine, the police cartographic sketch turned out to be that of a policeman.

    The police of course, dismissed this as an honest mistake. As a result, the policewoman cartographic artist was reported to have been suddenly transferred to Bicol.

     In lieu of the store personnel, the prosecution instead presented their witness who felt like eating barbecue at 1:30 in the morning. 

     Can you believe he also bought baby's milk  in the same  night, in the same stores and at the same time as when one of the suspects was also buying a bottle of wine and some barbecue? 

      Coincidence or Frame up? One might wonder how many more prosecution witnesses are actually police assets.

     Go to Part 17 for more of this witness.