MALAYA
‘If there should a reinvestigation to determine if Lacson is indictable in the deaths of Dacer and Corbito, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee should also reopen its inquiry into the Jose Pidal account.’
MANY curious events attended the filing of murder charges against Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson. The events may be interpreted as successful attempts on the part of the despised Arroyo regime to punish Lacson for shaming First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo as Jose Vidal who was keeping a secret account in a bank funded by money whose source is extremely difficult to explain.
However, in the end, the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee failed or refused to take any action on Jose Pidal because Lacson failed to produce bank documents showing that the account exists.
To make the account look clean and unquestionable, Ignacio Arroyo, brother of Mike, the former First Gentleman, admitted that the Jose Pidal account was his.
The signatures of Pidal which Lacson claimed were remarkably similar with that of Mike Arroyo were never fully examined by handwriting experts. Nevertheless, there was wide though unproven suspicion that the account belonged to Mike Arroyo.
After the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee wrote a report without any recommendation on what to do with Lacson’s expose on the Jose Pidal account, the Arroyo regime began to tighten the noose around Lacson’s neck.
It did not take too long for an RTC Judge to issue a warrant of arrest in relation to the Dacer-Orbito deaths against Lacson and denied him bail. On valid fears that he could not get justice from the regime, Lacson went into hiding to avoid being served the warrant. He became fugitive and surfaced only after Gloria Arroyo stepped down. As expected. the Court of Appeals nullified the warrant but the case has not been dismissed.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told me during the recent annual community press award sponsored by the Philippine Press Institute that a new investigation of Lacson will be conducted to determine whether there is probable cause to indict him for the murder of Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
The prosecutors filed the information against Lacson and company almost purely on the basis of an affidavit executed by Cezar Mancao, Lacson’s own assistant when he was head of the anti-organized crime task force.
His affidavit declared that he heard Lacson order Col. Michael Ray Aquino, now a respondent in the case, to do away with Dacer. During the preliminary investigation, Mancao admitted that he was promised reinstatement of his job in the PNP and that his family will be transferred to Singapore for reasons that were not explained.
That self-serving affidavit, proven to be a lie by counter-affidavits appeared to be the only reason to file the information. Forthwith, an RTC Judge issued the warrant of arrest against Lacson and denied him bail.
It is a weird coincidence that in less than one month, the RTC judge who issued the warrant was promoted to the Court of Appeals. The promotion was remarkably similar to that of RTC Judge Amelita Tolentino who went to the higher court after she convicted Hubert Webb and his friends for the alleged murder of the family of Lauro Vizconde.
They were later set free by the Supreme Court after serving 15 years behind prison walls.
It is important to note that the Dacer crime was committed about nine years ago. It is just as important to note that Mancao and Col. Michael Ray Aquino went to the United States to escape the wrath of Gloria Arroyo. Aquino kept his loyalties to Lacson and is now detained in the NBI after the request for extradition filed by the Arroyo government was granted by the United States.
If the circumstances surrounding the death of Dacer and Corbito must be reinvestigated to determine whether there is probable cause to indict Lacson, it would be fair to the ends of justice if the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee would reopen the inquiry into the expose of Lacson on the Jose Pidal account.
The fact that Ignacio Arroyo admitted that he is Jose Pidal does not remove the sting of the suspicion that he was not telling the truth.
The key to the revelation of the truth is to determine whether or not the signature of Jose Pidal is remarkably similar to the signature of Jose Miguel Arroyo, then First Gentleman.
After Ignacio Arroyo admitted that he was Jose Pidal and after Lacson failed to produce documents on the bank accounts the Blue Ribbon Committee terminated the inquiry.
The Senate body never saw the wisdom of asking a court to order the bank to submit to the committee all the documents related to the Jose Pidal account. If this had been done, Senator Lacson would have been proven as a fat liar or telling the truth.
We are left guessing but there is wide suspicion that he exposed an anomaly, did his duty as lawmaker and as a reward was ordered arrested without bail.
Neither was Ignacio Arroyo ever asked why he was using another person’s name – Jose Pidal – in keeping a bank account.
None of the above has not been written about mostly by this space. The only purpose of reciting the events again – not necessarily for the last time – is to express the hope that a reign of justice and fairness will dominate the administration of President Aquino.
The nine-year no-mandate misrule of Gloria Arroyo was the biggest curse this country suffered from its own alleged leader. President Aquino must lift the curse by restoring the rule of law, by never forgetting that there are three co-independent and co-equal branches of government.
The Constitution made this provision to ensure check and balance. In the regime of Gloria Arroyo there was only one Branch, the Executive. She was all of three branches.
We hope that President Arroyo will respect check and balance as the primary purpose of the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary being co-independent and co-equal although as it is the Executive is the most powerful Branch.
Gloria Arroyo saw that early in her life although her father, President Diosdado Macapagal being lawyer, had a very healthy respect for separation of powers. One of the clearest examples is that he went to the Supreme Court to stop outgoing President Carlos P. Garcia from appointing DominadorAytona, then secretary of finance, as governor of the Central Bank on the eve of Macapagal’s taking oath as President.
It was a midnight appointment that Macapagal never allowed. His daughter is a different.
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