Ping repeats earlier advice for Bato: Hide well
Hide well, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson told Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on Sunday, repeating the unsolicited advice he offered last year when the latter first disappeared from public view following reports he was ordered arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for being a “co-perpetrator” in former President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.
“I’ve been there. I have no moral ascendancy to advise him to surrender. I will not do that. But [since I am] his former superior officer, he directly worked with me at the PAOCTF (Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force), and as a former chief PNP (Philippine National Police), he should hide well,” Lacson said in a radio interview with dzBB.
Dela Rosa’s whereabouts remain unknown after he slipped out of the Senate premises before dawn on May 14 following an alleged attack on the Senate.
Three days before, he suddenly resurfaced in the Senate after more than six months in hiding to participate in the leadership change that ousted Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, who was replaced by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate President.
But before Dela Rosa managed to get into the session hall, he ran away from National Bureau of Investigation agents who tried to serve him the ICC arrest warrant, prompting the Senate to place him under its “protective custody.”
Self-preservation
Lacson said he understands where Dela Rosa was coming from, adding: “It’s self-preservation. If he wants to surrender or if he wants to show that he’s ready to face the accusations against him, that’s his call.”
Lacson, a former police officer who became PNP chief from 1999 to 2001, was Dela Rosa’s superior in the PAOCTF.
Upon retiring from the PNP, Lacson was elected senator, but while serving his second term, he had to go into hiding in January 2010 after he was tagged as the mastermind in the murders of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
The pair was abducted at an intersection in Makati City on Nov. 24, 2000. Their charred remains were found in April 2001 by a creek in Cavite and identified by forensic experts from dental records and personal items.
After more than a year in hiding, Lacson surfaced in March 2011 when the Court of Appeals reversed the finding of probable cause against him.
Case dismissed with finality
In November 2011, the Supreme Court junked the case against Lacson with finality.
Lacson, however, stressed his situation is different from that of Dela Rosa. He said that when he went into hiding as a “fugitive from injustice,” he did not break the law, citing the then applicable jurisprudence (Miranda v. Tuliao) that allowed an accused to seek judicial relief even if he is not under the court’s physical custody.
Lacson also advised law enforcers to do their intelligence work well in order to locate and arrest high-profile and prominent personalities, including Dela Rosa, gambling tycoon Charlie “Atong” Ang, former Bureau of Corrections Director General Gerald Bantag and ex-Rep. Elizaldy “Zaldy” Co.
“As one who worked in law enforcement, [had] intelligence for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between, intelligence is the prime mover of any operation, law enforcement or military,” he said.
He stressed that without good intelligence work and proper coordination, law enforcers tasked to look for the high-profile fugitives will be wasting their resources.
Lacson said it may be considered a tactical error on the NBI’s part when they tried to serve the warrant on Dela Rosa at the Senate.
“Senator Bato is a man. If they were really decided to arrest him, why would you assign two women to serve him the warrant? If the one you were about to arrest is a man and has a big build, you should assign people with the same body build as well,” he added. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
