I knew Bubby Dacer like most everyone among Manila’s brotherhood of journalists.
Manong Bubby, the soft-spoken Bicolano, loved to wear white (like basketball coaching legend Tito Eduque).
Provincial journalists were particularly close to him and the door of his room-cum-office at the Manila Hotel was always open, with his staff always ready to receive inquiries.
His clients were also legion: politicians and businessmen who needed his counsel to reach out to contacts in the mainstream press.
And one thing with Manong Bubby, whether you were ‘close’ to him or not, he had a way of communicating to you that if ever needed any help he’d be there.
So who would have wanted to do him any harm?
Where had he come from on the evening he and his driver were allegedly intercepted by men from the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).
An eerie feeling goes through me as I recall Manong Bubby’s own words to me that night: “Ding, malapit nang magkatulong-tulong ang lahat, matitigil na ang awayan. (Things will be resolved, we’ll be helping each other and the bickering will end.) Before I could ask him what he meant, Manong Bubby was already talking to another colleague and left minutes later after waving goodbye.
Several days after, news would break that he had gone missing with his white Toyota Revo was found dumped in Cavite.
It was much later that talk would circulate about Manong Bubby having been murdered in connection with documents in his possession and about his having intended “to disengage” from a controversial client.”
Rethinking Manong Bubby’s words to this writer 8 years after his murder, various controversies rocking the Estrada administration just months before Edsa Dos come to mind: the insider-trading incidents in the stock market and public uproar over an increase in summary executions believed to be the handiwork of rogue policemen, vigilantes, and guns for hire.
Will the mistery surrounding the death of the prominent ‘PR’ practitioner finally be unraveled?
The arrest in the U.S. and subsequent deportation to Manila of ex-PAOCTF men Cesar Mancao and Glenn Dumlao should logically bring out the truth.
Both Mancao and Dumlao are tagged to have been close to former PNP chief and now Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson.
So the good senator will again be hounded by the unanswered questions about Mancao and Dumlao’s activities.
The two former policemen will be brought to trial for their alleged crime.
But will the brains in the murders of Bubby Dacer and his driver, Alex Corbito ever pay for the dastardly deeds?
(Cross-posted @ At Midfield with revisions)
Tags: BUBBY DACER MURDER, PHILIPPINE CRIMINALITY
When I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear.
Edward Everett (1794 – 1865)
U.S. clergyman and politician.
I shall not about to shed a tear for Bubby, aka, Salvador Dacer, a Bicolano mestiso friend about 12 years my senior who once brought me to a stage in one month of April in an public elementary school graduation with sampaguita leis on our necks from swooning school children. I was prepared to voice out my righteous anger.
Yes, he was the guest speaker of that graduation in Parubcan town, now named Presentacion and I was a reporter of a local weekly published in Naga City. He was gunning for a seat in the 3rd District of Camarines Sur. That dream never came. That was pre-martial law.
I saw him again during martial law in his office near the breakwater of Manila Bay few blocks from the headquarters of U.S, Immigration in Roxas Boulevard. This time he was doubling as a recruiter of overseas Saudi workers and as a “media consultant” I came to see him in his capacity as a “Recruiter” to help place a friend. I paid for the “placement fee” which at my circumstance as a novice lawyer, was quite expensive. He was not able to find him job and so he ended up refunding my money.
Bubby did not lose his affable and amiable personality and his partiality toward a special white suite not of the coach Eduque attire, but of the more stylish safari swashbuckler of the Amazon. He is all style; loud and pomp, to compensate for lack of depth and the shrewdness of those people he wanted to serve as a “media consultant”. Once a media practitioner himself, Bubby had metamorphosed to an accomplice media operator whose business is to repackage personalities, corporations or government to an acceptable level.
He became a “paid-hack” but he is more honorable because he donned his professional suit remarkably well and unmistakable, compared to others employed by big media organizations that have the same mendacity as Bubby and yet they had managed to portray half-truths for whole truth, drew an accolade from a preposterous position and dish out the most outrageous fabrication to mislead the unsuspecting populace all in the name of “cash” and in the service of a client.
Bubby did the same, but he has put the public on notice that he is a “media consultant” and put out his best suit to telegraph his trade. Others would trade on traditional commercial asset, Bubby and others like him would trade also on information. This has cost him his life and his driver.
Bubby and his driver, Alex Surbito had paid the ultimate price and there is something bone chilling about it, no doubt. That those personalities, deviant and sick do not have the tolerance to parley from anyone matters that can go out of hand and bring them down in disgrace if they can shoot down the bearer of “ill-tidings”. These deviant characters are government personalities who believe only in the concept that democracy and freedom is the freedom of others to agree with them.
One of these personalities has a grand ambition to come back into the public office of which he had been momentarily disgraced, and another one was kicking so hard from his present political enclave so he can wade into the same political privilege the other has left.
People have not learned and probably will never will. We deserve our chain and enslavement.
jcc,
Your recollection of Manong Bubby’s demeanor and style are vividly accurate.
IUt may please you to know that a reformist wave is sweeping many newsrooms today with mainstream media bearing the onus of cleaning up its ranks as it seeks to recover lost ground with the public increasing accessing new media as their sources of news.
ding,
as my favorite columnist would say: media is one big business, its motto is profit and more profit.
and I say AMEN to that…
To my recollection, Bubby Dacer is one of the most generous person/golfer that I have ever known. As a golfer-friend, I and other friends were with Bubby on several golf games and events. Many caddies, maintenance workers, umbrella girls, ordinary golf club workers, and even security guards will always remember Bubby for his kindness and generosity in terms of financial dole outs. He also sent many poor students to school. He did all of these silently and without any fanfare. In some simple parties at his house, many famous people just come and go and partake of his famous dishes of seafood and laing. He was a loving father to his daughters, and son to his parents.
We pray that justice for Bubby and his driver, Awel will soon come. God bless!
RGG
Mr. Gallardo,
I join you in your prayer.