Ping on reconciliation: Let Kuratong accused live in peace

President Arroyo should allow police officers implicated in the Kuratong Baleleng rubout case to lead normal lives again if she is sincere in her call for "national reconciliation," opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson said yesterday.

"The President’s reconciliation call is not believable for as long as her attack dogs continue to assault the Kuratong suspects and the judge who has found no probable cause to indict them," said Lacson, who is among the 34 police officers accused in the May 1995 case.

Lacson and several police officers were implicated in the alleged summary execution of 11 suspected robbery gang members, who police claimed were killed in a shootout.

Lacson at the time headed the Task Force Habagat of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission under Vice President Joseph Estrada. The PACC has been disbanded.

However, Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Theresa Yadao dismissed the case last Wednesday even without arraignment or trial. She said there was no probable cause to file the multiple murder charges and prosecutors abused their discretion in filing the case.

The Department of Justice is mulling administrative charges against Yadao and having her disbarred for "grave abuse of discretion" and "gross ignorance of the law," Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño said.

Lacson said the government should respect the court ruling.

"Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño has verbally assaulted her, threatening her disbarment just because her decision was not to his liking," he said.

A former colleague of Lacson, Chief Superintendent Francisco Zubia, aired a similar appeal, asking authorities to let them lead normal lives.

"We have invested so much for our country and it hurts us so much that the very government we have faithfully served with our lives and blood is the one pushing us to the wall. For eight long years, our families and our respective careers as police officers have suffered so much," he said, reading from a prepared statement in a press briefing.

"Now that Quezon City regional trial court Judge Ma. Theresa Yadao has decided to dismiss the Kuratong Baleleng case, we hope that this would also mean the end of this endless persecution, motivaged solely by politics," he said.

Zubia added he and his co-accused have become "helpless casualties of some people’s efforts to pin down Lacson."

"We have families to care of and reputations to protect. We are therefore calling on all concerned to let this case go to rest. The rule of law has spoken. We expect nothing less from the government but to respect and uphold the rule of law," he said.

Zubia also appealed to his police superiors to give the young officers implicated in the case to rebuild their careers.

"We have been on floating status for so long. We are required to report daily to the administrative office (in Camp Crame) just so they are able to see our faces. But we do no work because they don’t give us any work," he said.

Lacson accuses the Arroyo administration of trying to revive the case to decimate his chances in next year’s presidential election.

In the run-up to the 2001 senatorial elections, the government had tried to link Lacson to several high-profile crimes committed by a police task force which he headed when he was then national police chief.

In 1998, Estrada appointed Lacson as chief of the Philippine National Police. Lacson resigned on Jan. 21, 2001, after Estrada was ousted in a military-backed popular protest. He ran for the Senate in May 2001 under Estrada’s coalition and won.

In 2001, military intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus accused Lacson of laundering the proceeds of drug and kidnapping in several overseas banks. But the government has so far failed to find conclusive evidence.

Lacson denied the allegations. — With Nikko Dizon, Artemio Dumlao