Jinggoy prepared to unmask 'real' Lacson

DUBAI – Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada said he is preparing to unmask the real Sen. Panfilo Lacson and tear off his disguise as “Mr. Clean.”

“I need to let the public know the real Panfilo Morena Lacson who disguises as Mr. Clean,” Estrada said.

Estrada is in the United Arab Emirates to help repatriate a group of distressed overseas Filipino workers.

Lacson earlier delivered a privilege speech accusing Estrada’s father, former President Joseph Estrada, of involvement in the illegal numbers game jueteng and large-scale smuggling.

The senator had also accused the former president of bullying prominent businessman Alfonso Yuchengco into selling his family’s shares in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

Lacson said his next privilege speech to be delivered possibly on Tuesday would touch on the disappearance of Edgar Bentain, an employee of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., who was believed to be the source of a videotape showing Estrada playing high-stakes poker in the VIP suite of a casino. 

“I really don’t have anything to do with that. I don’ even know him (Bentain). We just discovered that he was killed,” Sen. Estrada said.

“Bentain was the one who allegedly sold the videotape showing my father and I while playing card games at the casino in Heritage Hotel to Manoling Morato,” he said. Morato, a staunch critic of Estrada’s, was head of the Movie and Television Review Classification Board then.

Estrada said Lacson might just fabricate another story to link his father to the disappearance of Bentain.

“I don’t know the motive of Panfilo Morena Lacson. I would prepare my answer to his privilege speech part II. I gave him a leeway of one week to deliver his privilege speech part II. I would need the same period to prepare, gather all the evidence before I would counter his privilege speech part II,” he said.

Estrada said he is confident that the allegations raised by Lacson will have no bearing on the public’s support for his father should he decide to run again for president in 2010.

“It will have no effect on my father’s candidacy should he decide to run,” he said.