P-Noy won't interfere in Lacson's case, says Palace spokesman

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang clarified yesterday that President Aquino was not interfering in the case of Sen. Panfilo Lacson when he asked Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to thresh out the truth about the case.

“In the case of Senator Lacson, he has not yet been arraigned because he is at large. So the case has not moved yet,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said over dzRB.

Lacierda said the President made the statement after former Senior Supt. Glenn Dumlao bared that the prosecution forced him to pin down Lacson.

“He only wants to know what really happened now that the DOJ (Department of Justice) is under Secretary Leila de Lima, who is also another very serious secretary bent on reforming the justice system,” he said.

“It is not interference because, I repeat, once there is prosecution in a criminal case, there’s always executive branch as component, through the DOJ, because they are the ones who prosecute the case,” Lacierda said, pointing out that the DOJ has the right to intervene because it was the one prosecuting the case.

Lacson slipped out of the country in January before a warrant of arrest could be issued against him by the Manila Regional Trial Court for the killings of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000.

The DOJ wanted to cancel Lacson’s passport as he had been declared a fugitive after a warrant of arrest was issued against him.

Dumlao said Presiding Judge Myra Garcia-Fernandez of the Manila RTC Court Branch 18 had granted his motion to drop him from the list of suspects because the Supreme Court had already done so since October 2005.

Dumlao claimed that it was then President Joseph Estrada who ordered his unit, the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), to abduct Dacer and Corbito on suspicion that the publicist would blackmail him in the impeachment case by bringing BW Resources Corp. chair Dante Tan as a key witness at the Senate impeachment trial.

Prosecutors: No pressure on Dumlao

The other day, De Lima said the prosecution still has a strong case against the senator, even as Dumlao has practically cleared him.

The justice secretary said the testimony of former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao has strengthened the case against Lacson.

Dumlao and Mancao were members of the defunct PAOCTF.

Most of the more than 20 respondents were members of PAOCTF.

Last Friday, De Lima stood by her team of DOJ prosecutors handling the Dacer-Corbito case, denying that they (prosecutors) coerced Dumlao to involve Lacson in the murders.

De Lima said the allegations of Dumlao were unfair, as she challenged him to file a case against the prosecution panel if he is indeed telling the truth.

Assistant State Prosecutor Hazel Valdez said she never suggested, “much less insist, that he (Dumlao) implicate Senator Lacson in the murders.”

“I was merely trying to determine the extent of his testimony as part of our preparation. Again, Glenn Dumlao might have perceived it as a form of pressure but it was not. I do not begrudge him though for having had that impression because my conscience is clear,” Valdez said in a statement last Friday.       — With Sandy Araneta