By Manny Pinol
The things we did and words said in the past could either be feathers in the cap we proudly show around or scars we try very hard to hide.
Unfortunately for political figures like Senator Panfilo Lacson, the past will always be part of the present issues which people will dissect, examine and talk about as they choose the country’s next leader.
Lacson, Philippine politics’ mystery man, is a true-blooded Caviteno who made a name as a tough cop.
Graduating from the Philippine Military Academy, Lacson joined the police force and was later associated with the notorious MISG or the military intelligence and security group.
For those who lived the years of Martial Law, the name MISG was associated with brutal acts committed in the guise of police investigative work. It was a name which struck fear in the hearts of those who were considered anti-administration.
But Lacson rose from that shadowy world and became the country’s top cop through the support of then Vice President Joseph Estrada.
Estrada, who was vice president to Fidel V. Ramos, was designated as the Anti-Crime Czar of the Ramos presidency and he organized the PAOCTF or Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force.
When Joseph Estrada became president, Lacson was named chief of the Philippine National Police, a position which no doubt propelled him to the Philippine Senate.
Many people are fascinated by Ping Lacson because of his image as “Mr. Clean” but his critics, including former police reporter and now Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo refutes that.
Regardless of what Tulfo knows about Lacson’s past, the fact remains that Ping was one of the rare breed of legislators who did not touch his pork barrel.
In fact, Lacson stood before the Senate floor to denounce the Pork Barrel as an evil in governance.
There are, however, three incidents which have continuously haunted Ping Lacson, the political leader.
In 1995, while he was head of the PAOCTF, operatives under the Task Force along with several police units were linked to the massacre of 11 members of the notorious gang of bank robbers and thieves, the Kuratong Baleleng, in Quezon City.
Reports said the KB members were arrested somewhere else, their money confiscated and later killed in what was presented to the media as an armed encounter.
The killing was clearly a planned operation but as is common in the Philippines, people in power get away with even the worst criminal acts by claiming that these were done in the effort to protect the Filipino people from criminals.
But a Quezon City judge dismissed the case. An attempt to revive it in 2003, obviously in time for the 2004 Presidential elections, was also dismissed.
With the Kuratong Baleleng issue still up in the air with a lot of unanswered questions, Lacson was again linked in a more serious case.
A public relations man, Buddy Dacer, and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, disappeared without a trace. Their vehicle was later found but the two men or their bodies were never found.
Lacson was linked to the crime by his own men, specifically former aide Cesar Mancao, who testified that Lacson ordered the kidnapping of Dacer and Corbito to cover up for a financial scandal.
The case, which happened in 2000, became a full-blown case during the time of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who assumed the presidency following the ouster of Estrada.
Faced with the threat of arrest, Lacson, then already an elected Senator, fled the country in 2010 to an unknown destination and remained there until the Court of Appeals withdrew the case against him.
In 2011, Lacson returned to the country and incredibly reassumed his position as Senator as if nothing had happened with nary a question on where he went.
Today, Lacson appears to have been politically rehabilitated with the help of his friend, President Benigno S. Aquino III, who recently named him as head of the Typhoon Yolanda Rehabilitation Task Force.
Although he lost in his bid for the presidency in 2004, Lacson is still viewed as a presidential contender and many as enamored by his image as a No-Nonsense leader who gets things done never mind the methods or the costs.
But there are serious questions on Lacson’s moral ascendancy as a leader of the country. The Kuratong Baleleng and the Dacer-Corbito cases are among the issues which hang over his head.
Worse than that, however, is the implied message of his unceremonious flight to his hide-away in 2011.
The question is: How could somebody who defies the law and makes a travesty of the judicial process become a leader who will pledge to protect the law and respect the government processes?
Here is what en.wikipedia.org briefly says about Lacson:
Panfilo “Ping” Morena Lacson, Sr. (born June 1, 1948) is a Filipino politician who served as Philippinesenator, serving from 2001 to 2013.
He served as the Director-General of the Philippine National Policefrom 1999 to 2001 before being elected to the Philippine Senate.
To lead the management and rehabilitation efforts of the central provinces in the Philippines affected byTyphoon Haiyan, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III appointed Panfilo Lacson as Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery. [1]
Early life and education
Panfilo Morena Lacson was born in Imus, Cavite on June 1, 1948.[2]
He finished grade school at the Bayan Luma Elementary School in 1960, and high school at the Imus Institute in 1964. He completed Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at the Lyceum of the Philippines Universityand in 1967, attended the Philippine Military Academy.
He was commissioned in the Philippine Constabulary after his graduation in 1971. He earned a postgraduate degree of Master in Government Management from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila in 1996.
Early law enforcement career
Lacson worked at the Metropolitan Command (Metrocom) Intelligence and Security Group (MISG) from 1971 to 1986, during which time he was one of the arresting officers of student activist and martial law criticAbraham Sarmiento, Jr.
He also served at the PC-INP Anti-Carnapping Task Force from 1986–1988, as Provincial Commander of the Province of Isabela from 1988–1989, as Commander of Cebu Metropolitan District Command (Metrodiscom) from 1989–1992, and as Provincial Director of the Province of Laguna from February to July 1992.
He was then appointed to the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission as Chief of the Task Force Habagat from 1992 to 1995. From 1996 to April 1997, he was a project officer of Special Project Alpha.
During the Estrada administration
Lacson was appointed by then President Joseph Estrada to head the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) and to serve as Director-General of the Philippine National Police. Lacson’s notable accomplishments were the reduction of corrupt policemen (Kotong Cops), various syndicatesparticularly gambling and drug cartels and punished undisciplined motorists.
Senator
Lacson ran for senator in the 2001 elections under the LDP, which was affiliated with Estrada’s Puwersa ng Masa coalition. He won a seat in the Senate, finishing in the tenth place.
In late 2006, Lacson said he may run as mayor of the city of Manila in the 2007 midterm elections. However, he rescinded that decision and instead ran for re-election for a second Senate term under the Genuine Opposition coalition.
He won reelection in the 2007 senatorial elections senatorial elections, ranking third.
In the Senate, Lacson primarily authored the following:
• Republic Act No. 9160, as amended by Republic Act 9194, otherwise known as the Anti-Money Laundering Act
• Republic Act No. 9163, The National Service Training Program (NSTP) Act of 2001
• Republic Act No. 9166, An Act Increasing the Base Pay of the Members of the AFP
• Republic Act No. 9208, The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
• Republic Act No. 9416, Anti-Cheating Act of 2007
• Republic Act No. 9484, The Philippine Dental Act of 2007
• Republic Act No. 9485, Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007
He was also one of the co-authors of the following laws:
• Republic Act No. 9165, otherwise known as the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002
• Republic Act No. 9189, otherwise known as the Absentee Voting Act
• Republic Act No. 9287, otherwise known as the Anti-Jueteng and Illegal Numbers Game
• Republic Act No. 9406, An Act Reorganizing the Public Attorney’s Office
2004 Presidential Campaign
Lacson ran for President in the 2004 general election against the incumbent President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
His candidacy stirred disagreements with its party president, Senator Edgardo Angara. The COMELEC decided to follow what was done in the Quirino-Avelino case splitting the certificates of votes into half. Angara appealed the case before the Supreme Court and reversed the COMELEC decision.
Lacson resigned from the party upon hearing the news. He continued campaigning and in the elections, he finished third, ahead of former Senator Raul Roco and Bro. Eddie Villanueva.
Controversies
Revival of the Kuratong Baleleng case
In 1995, the PACC was linked to the killing of 11 members of Kuratong Baleleng in Quezon City. In 2003, the High Tribunal ordered the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to try the case against Lacson and 33 other police officials.
The trial court however dismissed the criminal case, finding absence of probable cause.
The special prosecuting team later moved for new trial before the High Tribunal to remand case to the trial court to present new evidence against Senator Lacson, inter alia.
On May 2, 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines resolved to take cognizance of the motion of the families of the slain Kuratong Baleleng members for revival of the murder case against police officials and Senator Panfilo Lacson.[3]
Dacer–Corbito Case
After eight years in the United States, Sabina and Carina Dacer, on July 11, 2008 testified before the Manila Regional Trial Court, regarding the mastermind of the abduction of their father.
Sabina swore that: “In his exact words he said, ‘mga anak, kung may mangyari sa akin, walang ibang may kakagawan noon kundi si Ping Lacson'” (my children, if anything should happen to me, no one else could be responsible but Ping Lacson).
Dacer’s family also discovered the publicist’s letter to Joseph Estrada on Panfilo Lacson’s 1999 actuation to secure the Philippine National Police chief post.
Dacer was the publicist of then PNP chief Roberto Lastimoso, Lacson’s rival. Lacson’s link to one of the suspects, Michael Ray Aquino, were also evident according to the Dacer witnesses.
Lacson denied the allegations: “For the nth time, I will assert the truth that I had nothing to do with it. They can lie and make people lie even under oath and before a court of law to make me look bad and guilty in the Dacer case. In fact, right after Dacer disappeared, the family sought my help…. And I responded the way I should as a law enforcement officer at that time.”[4]
Former police senior superintendent Cezar Mancao also named Lacson as the mastermind of the murders of Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
The allegations were made in an affidavit that Mancao signed on February 14, 2009, according to The Philippine Star.
Mancao was allegedly present when Lacson gave the hit order to then police senior superintendent Michael Ray Aquino sometime in October 2000.[5]
Lacson denied these allegations, stating that the Office of the President had pressured Mancao to sign the affidavit.[5]
In an interview by Philippine Daily Inquirer, then Transportation Undersecretary Reynaldo Berroya said that Dacer possessed documents showing Lacson was earning billions of pesos from stock manipulation.[6] Berroya was chief of the Philippine National Police Intelligence Group at the time of the murders.
Dacer and Corbito were abducted the morning of November 24, 2000, while on their way to the Manila Hotel. Investigations later showed that the two were interrogated, tortured and strangled to death, and their bodies burned.[6]
Mancao has recently returned to the Philippines on June 5, 2009, which is now in custody of the National Bureau of Investigation. On the same day, Panfilo Lacson told the press that he will no longer seek the Presidency in 2010 citing the cost of campaigning.[7]
Escape and return
He left the Philippines on January 5, 2010 to Hong Kong, shortly before charges against him were filed in court and his whereabouts for the next year were unknown.
On February 5, 2010, the Regional Trial Court in Manila issued an arrest warrant against him. On February 12, 2010, Interpol issued aninternational notice for Lacson.
On February 3, 2011, the Court of Appeals withdrew the murder charges against the senator. Its decision cited Mancao as “not a credible and trustworthy witness”.[8]
He returned to the country on March 26, 2011.
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