Looking for Ping

If we are to believe government authorities, law enforcement operatives have been on the manhunt to capture and arrest Sen.Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. The Senator has become a fugitive of the law since he went underground earlier this year after the court issued a warrant of arrest for his alleged involvement in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case.

Lacson is facing two counts of murder charges as principal in the murders of the late public relations man, Salvador “Buddy” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

Fast forward. The government prosecution panel was able to secure last February this year the issuance of a warrant of arrest against Lacson from the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 18. Tipped off about his imminent arrest, Lacson fled the country supposedly for abroad.

Lacson made a disappearing act when he allegedly left the country on Jan. 5. Since then, he is nowhere to be found. With a standing warrant of arrest over his head, government authorities have supposedly launched an international manhunt for the fugitive Senator.

However, recent reports claimed that Lacson has actually been in hiding here in our country all this time. He is allegedly assisted by his friends, possibly including his former mistahs or classmates from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1971. It took vigilant state auditors to detect Lacson's presence here when they found out he is signing vouchers for his Senate office.

One of the known mistahs of Lacson included fellow Senator, Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan. Like Lacson, Honasan was already a Senator when he was again implicated in yet another rebellion charges during the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Honasan was implicated in the July 2003 mutiny by the so-called “Magdalo” officers who took over the Oakwood Hotel in Makati City.

Honasan went into hiding for several months but was nabbed by police and military agents in November 2006 during a raid in Quezon City. He was granted bail by the Makati court trying his case in April 2007, about three weeks before election day. He ran and won as an independent for one of the 12 contested Senate seats during the May 14 elections that year. The Department of Justice (DOJ) headed then by Sec. Raul Gonzalez subsequently dropped the rebellion raps against Honasan for insufficient evidence.

He believes his embattled mistah is similarly placed in that situation. Honasan announced last week he would propose to his Senate colleagues a Resolution that would call for a re-investigation of his case by the DOJ.

Like his mistah, Lacson opted the easy way out of his legal predicaments. Lacson, who is on his second and last term, fled on possible fears he would not get a fair shake of his case under the Arroyo administration.

At that time, the Senator has already made a pact with then Sen.Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III that he would support the latter’s candidacy in the national elections in May. In fact, some of the known Lacson supporters were in the thick of Aquino’s presidential campaign.

But more than five months after Aquino has been installed as President, there was still no Lacson to show up and ready to face his accusers. Is Lacson afraid of his own ghosts haunting him?

He once headed the Philippine National Police (PNP) where he sent to jail many hardened criminals, some of them killed in the course of his police operations.

His stewardship of the PNP, though, was shortened by the EDSA-2 when his former boss, ex-President Joseph Estrada was ousted from office. Lacson was forced to early retirement from the police service in January 2001 when the reins of government were taken over by Estrada’s erstwhile Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

As history later unfolded, Estrada refused offers made to him by Arroyo’s emissaries to leave the country to avoid prosecution on the condition he would sign and submit a resignation letter. Estrada stood his ground that he had nothing to run away from, and that he was ready to face the threats of his prosecution in court.

Arroyo indeed proceeded with the plunder case against Estrada and his son, then San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada as co-accused. The dramatic arrest of the Estradas was made by police authorities at his residence at No.1 Polk St. in North Greenhills, San Juan where he proceeded after he left Malacañang at the end of EDSA-2.

Looking back during those dark days of his life, the former President could only conjure a self-deprecating joke about his arrest. “Di naman sila mabiro, kinulong nga ako!”

Like any other criminal, Estrada was made to undergo mug shots and finger printing at the PNP Headquarters in Camp Crame. He and Jinggoy stayed at the Camp Crame Detention Center.

For a while, the Estradas were detained in Camp Crame until intense pressure from here and abroad forced the Arroyo administration to be kinder with the deposed President. He was given a hospital detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City while undergoing plunder trial at the Sandiganbayan. Estrada was later allowed to be transferred to his own 16-hectare resort in Tanay, Rizal under strict police guarding. He stayed at his rest house detention until his plunder conviction in September 2007, but subsequently given executive pardon by Mrs.Arroyo.

Perhaps, Lacson could do an Estrada. He could do no less if he really believes in his innocence. Face the music, so to speak.

Last Thursday, Lacson’s media office released his statement where he supposedly took the hardline stand: “I will only come out when justice is rightly served, or when I’m already dead.”

Lacson’s statement came a day before the Court of Appeals (CA) junked his lawyers’ bid to give him provisional liberty pending trial of the Dacer-Corbito double murder case. Speaking for the Palace, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. advised the fugitive Senator to trust in the justice system of the country even as it grinds slowly.

The CA ruling means that legal hurdles for his arrest have been eliminated. Hence, manhunt operations leading to his possible arrest and capture by law enforcement agency should continue.

Lacson remains elusive. Law enforcers seem to be everywhere looking for Ping. But why can’t they seem to find him?