Ping Lacson: Getting Away with Murder


Is Ping Lacson's second coming a case of a wronged man returning home? Or is his return a case of political orchestration that allowed a man with a murderous reputation to come back to the Philippines without any chance of impunity? Whatever the case may be, the whole notion of justice being done in the Philippines has once again been consigned to the disgusting heap of political excrement. It is a pattern that is becoming all-too ubiquitous in the Philippine political scene.

The lingering question at hand is not whether Lacson is guilty of the Dacer-Corbito murders which took allegedly took place in 2000, when the former presidential candidate was the head of the Philippine National Police under Joseph Estrada. To focus on this question before the due process of law can be started let alone completed is putting the cart before the horse.

We cannot even begin to consider the question of Lacson's involvement until the judicial process is properly implemented. And that meant the issuing of an arrest warrant by a Manila Regional Court and the executing of that warrant. The only problem being that Lacson avoided the warrant by illegally and clandestinely fleeing the country. He actually claimed that he was a "fugitive from injustice," a sickening defense coming from someone like him.

So it has come to this: now that Lacson is free to return to the scene of so many of his crimes, a trial that might have proven his guilt has been flatly squashed by his influential friends and allies in and out of government. As Filipinos, haven't we heard this story before?

To add insult to injury: President Noynoy Aquino acknowledged that he had already met--"touching base" was his words--with Lacson at Malacanang Palace shortly upon his return from hiding. Did they speak of the charges that had once been hanging over Lacson? No. They discussed pork barrel management and, I kid you not, chicharon.

In the Philippines, even something as innocuous as a meeting between a president and a senator can portend the worst for those who still believe in justice.

ALLEN GABORRO

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