Probe of alleged Lacson accounts urged

Three junior legislators expressed support yesterday to calls by leaders of the House of Representatives for an investigation of allegations that Sen. Panfilo Lacson had kept $1.1 million in various banks in the United States.

In a statement, Reps. Allan Peter Cayetano, Del de Guzman and Robert Ace Barbers said Lacson should be given a chance to answer in a "proper forum" charges that he had accounts in six American banks when he was chief of the Philippine National Police.

Documents furnished the Department of Justice (DOJ) by the US Attorney General’s Office showed that Lacson owned the bank accounts, they added.

The three legislators chided the (DOJ) and the Office of the Ombudsman for failing to immediately act on the information from the US government.

"It is telling that the US government has already furnished these documents as early as 2001, and we have not seen anything happen since the criminal cases based on these submissions were filed with the Ombudsman," Cayetano said.

The Office of the Ombudsman denied yesterday that it is "sitting" on two cases which the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had filed against Lacson.

"Basically, the delay is due to the parties, their failure to file affidavits and documents," said Assistant Ombudsman Ernesto Nocos, who also serves as spokesman.

Nocos said the NBI has accused Lacson of kidnapping Chinese nationals Zeng Jia Xuan, Hang Sen Quiao, Zeng Kang Pang, James Wong and Wang Kam Chong based on an exposé of former police informant Mary "Rosebud" Ong.

Lacson is also facing charges of violating Republic Act 6713, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees for allegedly failing to file his statement of assets and liabilities for the past four years, he added.

Deputy Speaker for the Visayas Raul Gonzalez and NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco have asked Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo what had happened to Lacson’s cases, which have been pending since August last year.

"Here is prima facie evidence presented to our government by no less than the US authorities that Senator Lacson, during his incumbency in the PNP, had indeed stashed away hidden wealth in secret American bank accounts," Gonzalez said in a letter to Marcelo.

"This bolsters the case that there may have been illicit funds which found its way to these accounts. Kindly be advised that the inaction by your office of an important case such as this, involving a person who has announced his presidential candidacy may work injustice to the Filipino people as we face a crucial election in 2004."

Joining the former Tanodbayan was Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentebella, who asked the Anti-Money Laundering Council to investigate Lacson’s bank accounts here and abroad. — With Delon Porcalla