Senator’s ‘tourist days’ over – DOJ

A warrant of arrest against Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson was issued on Friday by a Manila court hearing the Dacer-Corbito double-murder case in which the senator was implicated. Judge Myra Garcia Fernandez of Branch 18 of the Regional Trial Court of Manila issued the arrest warrant against Lacson, who had  left the country, alleging harassment by Malacañang.

The senator was formally charged on January 7 linking him to the murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and Dacer’s driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

In the case before the Regional Trial Court of Manila, former police Supt. Glenn Dumlao and former police Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao 2nd pointed to Lacson and former President Joseph Estrada as the ones behind the killings. Lacson was the national-police chief at the time of the incident and the concurrent head of the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

Lacson, in a press statement, cleared his name and said that his departure was not an indication of guilt.
Members of the Philippine Congress enjoy immunity from arrest.

In Article 6, Section 11, the Constitution provides, “A senator or member of the House of Representatives shall, in all offenses punishable by not more than six years’ imprisonment, be privileged from arrest while the Congress is in session . . .”

Lacson, however, cannot invoke the constitutional provision on parliamentary immunity because the penalty for murder charges against him is more than six years’ imprisonment.

Officially, the senator is now considered a fugitive, acting Secretary Agnes Devanadera of the Department of Justice said also on Thursday after the arrest warrant against Lacson was issued.

“The law will be running after him. Tapos na ang pagiging turista niya, fugitive na siya [His tourist days are over, he is now a fugitive],” Devanadera added.

She said that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) would have to serve the warrant, adding that Lacson would have to be extradited first if indeed he was still abroad.

Lawyer Ricardo Diaz, the chief of the NBI’s Counter Terrorism Unit, said that they are tracing Lacson’s possible whereabouts with the help of Interpol.

He added that Lacson’s capabilities as a former national-police chief would make the search for the senator a game of “hide-and-seek.”

Diaz said that Lacson was not in China (Hong Kong), Australia or the United States.

“The last time he [Lacson] was in Australia was in 2008. He has no US visa after Michael Ray Aquino’s conviction in the US for spying,” he added, referring to another subordinate of Lacson in PAOCTF.

Reports said that Lacson frequently goes to Taiwan.

Wherever the embattled senator is, Devanadera said she was confident that Lacson would eventually return to the Philippines because he must face the charges against him.

Govt protection
A newly appointed Malacañang spokesman agreed.

Lacson  “is part of the lawmaking body, so being part of Congress he must set an example in following the rule of law. That in case there is a warrant of arrest [against him], he must [come] home and face the charges. It is what is in the law, so let us follow the law,” Charito Planas said.

According to Planas, the government was prepared to provide Lacson necessary security.

Lacson had said that he left the country because he feared for his personal safety from the “evil conspiracy” allegedly being hatched against him by the Arroyo administration.

Another deputy spokesman said that Lacson had not presented any proof that there was a threat against him and echoed Planas on the government keeping him safe.

Planas, a lawyer, denied that the Palace was behind the murder charges against Lacson. She said that the charges had been filed in court and Malacañang had nothing to do with the filing.

With the warrant of arrest issued, Planas added, the Philippine government will notify its embassies on the possibility of canceling f Lacson’s passport in case he refuses to return home.

The senator, she said, can be considered a fugitive once he failed to turn himself in and started hiding after the arrest warrant was issued, Planas said.

But she admitted that the government could have difficulties in bringing Lacson back to the Philippines if he went to a country with which the Philippines has no extradition treaty.

Planas added that Philippine authorities could work with Interpol to secure the senator’s arrest and bring him home.

According to Devanadera, the Philippines has extradition treaties with Australia and many other countries and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with Hong Kong.

When asked what steps Manila would take if Lacson was discovered to be in a country with which the Philippines has no extradition treaty, Devanadera said, “It’s now up to the NBI to determine where Lacson really is and to serve the warrant against him.”

The senator, the Justice chief added, may opt to elevate his case to the Supreme Court but that would not save him from being detained pending action on his appeal.

Murder is a non-bailable offense under the Revised Penal Code. Lacson may be sentenced to maximum life imprisonment if found guilty.

Records showed that the government prosecutors filed the information for double murder against the senator on January 7 before the sala of Judge Fernandez.

On January 8, Lacson’s name was included in the watchlist of the Bureau of Immigration to prevent him from leaving the country.

But Lacson beat the Justice department to the draw, flying to Hong Kong on board Cathay Pacific Flight 904 at 7:30 a.m. of January 7.

Still abroad
Immigration records showed that the senator has not returned from abroad.

Senior State Prosecutor Peter Ong, the head of a three-man Justice department panel that conducted preliminary investigation, said that the department got testimonies of least two eyewitnesses who have direct knowledge of the double murder.

Also part of evidence used by government prosecutors against Lacson were results of forensic examination made by Dr. Raquel del Rosario Fortun, a pathology expert from the College of Medicine of the University of the Philippines.

Ong cited an affidavit executed by Mancao on February 13, 2009 in Florida, pointing to Lacson as the one who gave the order to Aquino to liquidate Dacer.

Mancao, one of the principal suspects who turned state witness, said that it was sometime in October 2000 when Lacson gave the hit order to Aquino while they were on their way to a restaurant in Greenhills in what is now San Juan City in Metro Manila.

Based on his affidavit, the Dacer sisters—Emily Dacer Hungerson, Sabina Dacer Reyes, Carina Dacer and
Amparo Dacer Henson, who are all residing in the United States—filed the criminal charges against Lacson.

In a nine-page affidavit, dated March 23, 2009, the Dacer sisters said that “Sen. Lacson not only conspired with the accused in the murders of our father and Mr. Corbito but in fact orchestrated the same. Being then the head of the PAOCTF, he exercised ascendancy over all members of the task force, particularly those who executed the killings.”

“To be sure, the acts of PAOCTF personnel involved before, during and after the gruesome killing of our father and Mr. Corbito could have only been done upon the direction of Sen. Lacson,” the Dacer siblings added.

Lacson had claimed that linking him to the murders of Dacer and Corbito was  “simple persecution, not prosecution.”

“I have been a vocal critic of this administration and this is one way of getting back at me, persecution,” the senator said.

In his counter-affidavit, Lacson also claimed that the charges made by the Dacer sisters were purely hearsay because they completely relied on the affidavit of Mancao.

Dacer and Corbito were abducted in November 2000 in Manila on their way to the Manila Hotel for a meeting with former President Fidel Ramos. Dacer was reportedly carrying at the time important documents related to the BW Holdings’ stock scandal that nearly caused the collapse of the Philippine Stock Exchange.

BW was owned by Dante Tan, a close ally of former President Estrada.

The bodies of Dacer and Corbito, burned beyond recognition, were found later in Indang, Cavite province, south of Manila.
ROMMEL C. LONTAYAO, WILLIAM B. DEPASUPIL, RUBEN D. MANAHAN 4th, ANGELO S. SAMONTE AND LLANESCA T. PANTI