Lacson arrest for Kuratong Baleleng case seen

Military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus is expecting Sen. Panfilo Lacson to be arrested soon, not for the millions of dollars he allegedly stashed in foreign banks but for the 1995 Kuratong Baleleng case.

Corpus said that the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) which he heads has enough evidence to send Lacson "to at least a lifetime in jail" for the summary execution of 11 members of the Kuratong Baleleng robbery group.

"A few days from now we will get the warrant for his arrest," Corpus said, noting that the restraining order issued by the Court of Appeals on the reopening of the case is expiring this week.

According to Corpus, the ISAFP now has at least five witnesses, including the leader of the police team that Lacson allegedly tasked to kill the Kuratong Baleleng members.

Senior Inspector Abelardo Ramos has reportedly told the military that he was present at the meeting when Lacson ordered the killing before dawn of May 18, 1995. "He quoted Lacson as saying ‘na siguraduhin n’yong walang mabubuhay diyan ’(make sure no one survives)," Corpus said.

Another witness the ISAFP chief is planning to present against Lacson is the police captain who allegedly led the raid of the Kuratong Baleleng’s hideout in Parañaque and brought the 11 members to the Philippine National Police headquarters at Camp Crame.

A third witness, Corpus said, claims he saw the $2.5 million the gang members took from a bank armored van which they hijacked near the Nayong Pilipino in Parañaque. The money, the witness said, was seized by police.

Lacson and other top police officials were initially charged in the case but they were never arrested for lack of evidence. The case was eventually shelved by the Department of Justice after witnesses recanted their statements, only to reopen it six years later when new witnesses surfaced.

Will the real Kim stand up?

Meanwhile, the identity of Kim Wong, the suspected drug lord Corpus has linked to Lacson, has become confusing after Sen. Robert Barbers presented a close aide who looked very much like Kim.

Barbers introduced to reporters lawyer Stephen Villaflor, his deputy chief of staff, whose appearance closely resembled that of the man Corpus accused of being a bigtime drug lord.

Villaflor said he was first amused at the resemblance, but he later felt fear after realizing its possible effects on himself and his family.

"It was kind of funny and at the same time frightening," he said.

Corpus revealed on Sunday that his men have traced several cellular phone numbers being used by Lacson to Kim Wong, allegedly a member of a powerful drug syndicate based in Hong Kong.

He showed the media a photograph of Kim on Monday. The photograph, however, looked like Villaflor.

Villaflor advised Corpus to exercise more care in presenting photographs of suspected criminals to the media since it could lead to further confusion in the case the ISAFP is working on.

"Colonel Corpus should be more responsible. Who knows if they really got the real Kim Wong when they said the photograph was from a surveillance camera?" the senator’s aide asked.

Barbers said his close aide has become the subject of jokes in the Senate because of the Kim Wong photograph. He said Villaflor has been working for him since 1996 when he was still secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

"We have been laughing here. We are thinking of making money out of it, but seriously, we want to clarify that he (Villaflor) is not the Kim Wong in the photograph," he said.

In other developments, a police officer identified with Lacson reportedly beat up Monday night a trusted aide of Mary Ong, the government witness who accused the senator of being involved in kidnapping for ransom and drug trafficking.

Superintendent John Campos, a former live-in partner of Ong, allegedly mauled Ong’s aide Dominador "Teng" Bartolata at the Petron gas station at the corner of EDSA and Connecticut streets in San Juan.

Bartolata, who has been serving Ong for the last 11 years, said Campos wanted to know where Ong and her two children are staying. When he refused to tell, the aide was mauled by the policeman and was left with cuts and bruises. – With Aurea Calica, Paolo Romero, Cristina Mendez, Efren Danao