Angara not worth my time — Lacson

Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson refused to further tangle yesterday with his former party boss, Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) president Sen. Edgardo Angara.

Asked by The STAR to respond to Angara’s accusation that he was a modern-day makapili who "sold the opposition down the river" during the May presidential election, Lacson’s answer was short but not sweet: "He is not worth my time!"

In a text message to a broadcaster, he said his former party boss "can talk all he wants but I won’t answer him."

The former Philippine National Police chief has denied all the charges that Angara has leveled against him.

The two had a falling out shortly before the May election after Angara decided to junk his own party mate in favor of popular movie actor Fernando Poe Jr. in the search for an opposition standard-bearer.

Both Poe and Lacson lost to President Arroyo.

During the three-month presidential election campaign, Angara and Lacson traded charges of being agents of the Arroyo administration who are out to divide the opposition.

On Thursday, after the Senate-sponsored necrological service for the late Sen. Arturo Tolentino, Angara, in an interview, blamed Lacson for the opposition’s loss to Mrs. Arroyo.

Even with a fresh word war having erupted between the two opposition members, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said his warring colleagues would remain with the minority.

"Their quarrel is just between the two of them," he said.

Pimentel asked his two colleagues to set aside their personal differences for the sake of strengthening the Senate minority. He also advised them to "cool it" before their cold war gets out of hand.

"It is disadvantageous to the minority... Senator Angara is a valuable member of the minority and we value also the support of Senator Lacson," he said.

Pimentel added that the minority, by definition already outnumbered, "are counting heads here." He said they are presently nine and cannot afford to lose one more.

Another minority member, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III, said, "Si Angara lang naman ang may problema kay Ping, kami wala naman (It’s only Angara who has a problem with Ping. As for the rest of us, we don’t have any)."

Such sentiment was shared by Jinggoy Estrada, the senator-son of ousted President Joseph Estrada.

"Okay si Ping sa akin (Ping is okay with me). I can work with him in the minority," Estrada said.

But more fuel appeared to be thrown into the fire when Makati Rep. Agapito Aquino entered the fray to take up the cudgels for his ally, Lacson.

"Angara is the culprit behind the opposition’s debacle," the younger brother of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. said in a statement, noting that it was Angara himself who picked the outsider Poe to be the opposition standard-bearer, leading to the breakup of LDP, a party that Ninoy Aquino founded in 1978.

"For the record, we never asked Angara or any of the handlers of Poe for any concessions before, during or after the presidential campaign," he insisted, adding that it was actually the other way around.

Lacson was the disgraced president’s favorite policeman. Besides serving as PNP chief during Estrada’s short-lived administration, Lacson was also head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force.

He started working for Estrada when the latter was vice president and head of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission under the Estrada administration. — With Evelyn Macairan, Delon Porcalla