Probable cause or bare suspicion?
1. Can uncorroborated testimony be accepted as probable cause?
2. Can hearsay be accepted as evidence in court?
3. Can "non-sequitur" be a valid argument for proving an allegation?
4. Is the head of a police unit responsible for criminal acts of people under his command?
5. Does the inconsistent testimony of one person carry more weight than the consistent testimony of three witnesses?
The answer to every question above is NO. Therefore, there is no probable cause to charge Senator Ping Lacson for the murder of Dacer and Corbito.
Mancao said he heard a conversation inside a car. But he told everyone about it nine years after the alleged conversation took place, with "guidance" from the DOJ panel, with the threat of extradition and criminal prosecution hanging above his head.
Nobody except himself says that he heard such a conversation. If the two people talking inside the car were so careless in talking about a plot to murder somebody, it stands to reason that they should also be careless in talking about it in some other place, in front of some other people.
That letter that Dacer wrote to Estrada maligning Ping. If that is evidence against the maligned person, that would seem to be a perverted way to look at evidence. There is no proof that Senator Ping Lacson knew about that letter until Dacer disappeared.
The letter plus the tale of the Dacer sisters that their father pointed to Ping as the one responsible in case something happens to him are all unrelated to the disappearance of Dacer and by any stretch of imagination cannot be taken as evidence that Ping wanted Dacer dead.
If command responsibility is defined as being responsible for every illegal or criminal act of every person under your command in a police organization, all our police officers would be in jail right now.
Three people - Dumlao, Aquino and Oximoso all said Ping is innocent of this crime. Only Mancao says so and he was recorded as saying in the past that he was being pressured or enticed to fabricate charges against Ping. His recall of when the event inside the car took place proves he was not telling the truth. Taking for granted that there was really a conversation, he admitted he may not have heard everything right.
Justice equates to truth. It cannot be used to uphold untruth.
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