MIAMI, Florida - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released cashiered Philippine Senior Superintendent Cesar Mancao from its custody April 20 after the local court freed him on bail of $575,000. Mancao, who is based in Pembroke Pines in Florida, had been taken into custody by federal authorities as a “material witness” in an espionage case.

 Mancao, who was arrested by the FBI for his immigration status and to “secure his testimony” in the case against former FBI analysts Leandro Aragoncillo and former Philippine police officer Michael Ray Aquino.
 Mancao was arrested last April 13 in Miami “on a material witness warrant.” (In Manila, Philippine officials hailed the arrest of Mancao who, along with Aquino have been accused in the double-murder of PR practitioner Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in the Philippines several years ago. Aragoncillo and Aquino are both facing espionage charges before the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey. Both Mancao and Aquino were members of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) under then Police General-turned Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
Meanwhile, the US government finally bared on April 12 the identities of “current and former public officials of the Philippines” who received classified information from former FBI intelligence analyst Aragoncillo and Aquino in court filings before the Newark, New Jersey US District Judge William H. Walls.
Former President Joseph Estrada was named as the Public Official #1 described in a criminal complaint as a former high-level public official; Sen. Panfilo Lacson as the Public Official #2, a current high-level public official; and former Speaker now Congressman Arnulfo P. Fuentebella (NPC-3rd Dist. Camarines Sur) as Public Official #3, a second current high-level public official. In a 17-page “letter brief” filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karl H.  Buch on behalf of US Attorney Christopher J. Christie, it said the US government needed to disclose the identities of the “Public Officials in this filing in order to coherently and effectively respond to defendant’s Foreign Deposition Motion” filed last March 10.
In that motion, Aquino’s lawyer, Mark A. Berman, asked Judge Walls to allow him to travel to the Philippines to depose Mr. Estrada, Senator Lacson, Congressman Fuentebella, Senators Aquilino Pimentel and Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Congressman Roilo Golez (2nd Dist.- Kampi), who will testify that the information they received from Aragoncillo and “Aquino did not contain classified U.S. government information or documents.”
Aragoncillo, was arrested last September after an FBI investigation revealed he downloaded more than 100 sensitive documents while working as an FBI analyst at the Fort Monmouth Information Technology Center in New Jersey.   Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury in Gloucester County, New Jersey, was arrested after he appeared at the office of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) as he inquired on the arrest of Aquino for overstaying a tourist visa issued on July 7, 2001.  Aragoncillo is being held at Hudson County Jail while negotiating for a plea agreement with the US government. While Aquino is being held at the Passaic County Jail in Paterson, New Jersey.  Prosecutors believe Aragoncillo and Aquino were part of a broader group conspiring to topple incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The names of the conspirators in the Philippines are still being withheld. But newspapers in Manila have reported that both Estrada and Lacson have acknowledged receiving information from Aragoncillo.
The government lawyers said they have evidence that shows Aragoncillo gave Aquino sensitive U.S. information about terrorism, politics and criminal activities in the Philippines. Aquino was also alleged to have tried to get President Arroyo’s private telephone number, travel and financial records. Berman said Aquino was just a mere “unwitting pawn” who may have forwarded information he did not realize was classified. The 39-year-old former Philippine police officer was working as a nurse and raising a family in New York when he was arrested by immigration agents.
In Manila, court records show both Mancao and Aquino fled from the Philippines in June 2001. Aquino used an assumed name in going to Hongkong and using a genuine Philippine passport with a US tourist visa in entering the United States from Hongkong in July 2001.