Bato gets advice from ‘fugitive from injustice’ Lacson
TRECE MARTIRES CITY—Take it from someone who has done it before: Going on the lam won’t end your legal woes. Former Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Friday reminded reelectionist Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa that evading arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC) would only make his “prison” bigger.
“That’s his choice,” Lacson told reporters when asked about Dela Rosa’s plan to go into hiding should the ICC issue an arrest warrant on dela Rosa as it did two weeks ago on former President Rodrigo Duterte.
“But to seek refuge in the Senate, that seems to be debatable because the legislative immunity given to members of Congress is limited,” Lacson said during a campaign stop in his home province of Cavite by fellow senatorial candidates of the administration coalition Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
Greater offense
The former senator, who is seeking to return to the upper chamber, cited the 1987 Constitution, in particular Section 11 on Article VI (on the Legislative Department), which states that legislators may seek the protection of their chamber only when Congress is in session and if they are accused of committing offenses with jail terms of less than six years.
But Lacson noted that dela Rosa possibly faces a greater offense before the ICC.
A former chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) like dela Rosa, Lacson knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the law, chased by police who used to be his subordinates.
In 2010 when he was serving his second term as senator, Lacson went into hiding after the Department of Justice filed charges against him in connection with the 2000 double murder of public relations veteran Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
Lacson had earlier claimed that his exposés against then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo prompted his political persecution.
He resurfaced a year later under the succeeding administration of Benigno Aquino III, by which time the Court of Appeals had dismissed his case in a decision the Supreme Court would later uphold.
‘Cop-out’
Looking back to his experience as a “fugitive from injustice,” Lacson said “It’s difficult [if] your prison only becomes bigger…You [still] could not move around.”
“It was the job of our law enforcement [agencies] to look for fugitives. They failed to find me. That’s their problem,” he added.
Dela Rosa, who had said earlier he was ready to “submit myself” should the ICC order his arrest, changed his mind on Wednesday, telling reporters he may go into hiding or seek the Senate’s protection.
Another former senator criticized Dela Rosa for his “cop-out” stand on the tribunal’s possible arrest.
“He becomes a fugitive, and if he wins a second term he cannot perform his functions because he will be in hiding,” former Senator and party-list candidate Leila de Lima said on Facebook.
“This is a cop-out of course, after so many years of bragging and being macho about facing the ICC,” said de Lima, who faced the drug charges filed against her by the Duterte administration and was detained for six years until her release in 2023—WITH INQUIRER RESEARCH INQ
