Lacson calls Jinggoy 'traitor' in Part 2 of anti-Erap speech

If former President Joseph Estrada was a jueteng protector, a smuggler’s godfather and a bully, his son is a jueteng beneficiary, a traitor, and one who consorts with the government he claims to oppose. This was how Senator Panfilo Lacson described Senate President Pro Tempore Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada on Tuesday, a week after the younger Estrada accused Lacson of being a secret ally of the Arroyo administration. "I was aghast at how the gentleman from San Juan, in his privilege speech in this same hall last week, accused this representation of being an administration ally, simply because I exposed the true character of his father, the former president," Lacson said in the second installment of his privilege speech. Jinggoy made the accusation last Sept. 15, or a day after Lacson delivered the first part of his privilege speech where he detailed the former President’s alleged involvement in jueteng and smuggling operations, and of pressuring trader Alfonso Yuchengco to sell his business shares. In the second part of his speech, Lacson not only narrated three "horror stories" about Jinggoy but also linked Estrada to the abduction-murder of a casino worker in 1999 and of conniving with a lawyer to fabricate evidence to pin him (Lacson) as the mastermind in the Dacer-Corbito double killings of 2000. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Lacson disclosed a supposed phone conversation between Jinggoy and former presidential pal Charlie “Atong" Ang in 2006. At the time, Ang was about to be extradited to testify in former President Estrada's plunder case then pending at the Sandiganbayan. The original charge sheet had included “the father, the mother and a son. Of course we now know that the father was convicted, while the mother and son were acquitted," Lacson said. "Pare, kung uuwi ka, kung ano man ang plano mo, huwag mo na kaming idamay ni mommy. Si daddy na lang, kaya niya namang i-depensa ang sarili niya. May ambisyon pa ako. Magpe-presidente pa ako. Ako ang bahala sa ‘yo," Lacson recalled the "man" in Los Angeles telling Ang. (If you’re coming home, leave my mother and me out of this. Just pin daddy. He can defend himself. I have ambitions of being president. I’ll take care of you.) Lacson said Ang, who was in Las Vegas at the time, "could not believe" what the man in Los Angeles told him. He said he himself could not believe the story were it not for the source of the conversation being "unimpeachable." "It reached this humble representation because the source heard my privilege speech followed the other day by a litany of diatribes and name-calling from the other representation," he said. Jueteng money A second story involved two "presidential brothers," where the elder brother called the attention of a jueteng operator in Baguio City after learning that the younger brother was getting P1 million payola (payoff) a month. "‘Yung P1M na ibinibigay mo sa kapatid ko, hatiin mo. Sa akin mo ibigay ang kalahati, baka gamitin lang pambili ng drugs 'yung pera," the brother supposedly told the operator. (The P1 million you are giving to my brother, split it with me because my brother may just use it to buy drugs.) Aside from the additional P500,000 sequestered from the younger brother, according to Lacson, the elder brother had a regular monthly payola of P800,000 from another jueteng operator from Bulacan, P1 million from former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis Singson, and an unspecified amount from yet another gambling lord from Pampanga. "Talk about betrayal, Mister President," Lacson said. The third story involved an incumbent Cabinet secretary and "an elected senator of the Republic" who would ask the Cabinet official for a project when he loses P10 million. Lacson said the day after the senator asked for a project, a member of the senator’s staff would call on the Cabinet secretary to make a follow-up. "Mister President, distinguished colleagues, the three short stories that I shared with you only show the rotten moral values of that son, brother and public official," he said. Dacer-Corbito case In the second part of his speech Tuesday, Lacson talked about an alleged attempt to pressure a witness in the Dacer-Corbito case into implicating him as the mastermind. He claimed that Estrada and Ferdinand Topacio, the lawyer of former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II, have forged an unholy alliance and that Topacio had sent a lawyer to pressure former Senior Superintendent Glenn Dumlao into corroborating a supposedly new witness who would link Lacson to the crime. “Only last Friday, September 18, 2009, at around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Glenn Dumlao was visited by a lawyer who conveyed a message from the same Attorney Ferdinand Topacio to convince him to corroborate the affidavit executed by the new found false labandera witness that I had a shouting match with Mister Dacer in a beach resort in Batangas," Lacson said. Two days later, he said, Topacio went to Estrada’s house in San Juan City to “report" to the former president. He said this shocked Estrada’s lawyers who were there at the time. Dumlao and Mancao both served under Lacson in the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), the organization believed to be behind the disappearance and killing of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito on Nov. 24, 2000. Both Lacson and Estrada have denied involvement in the Dacer-Corbito case. The Dacer family's lawyer, Demetrio Custodio Jr., last week said a laundrywoman would link Lacson to the crime by claiming she saw Lacson and Dacer arguing on a beach in Batangas a week before Dacer and Corbito disappeared. Lacson said that when the lawyer relayed Topacio’s message to Dumlao and the former officer was "unconvinced to perjure himself and cooperate with them," Topacio told him that his reinstatement in the PNP would be stalled. “‘Papaano ‘yan? Iipitin nila ang reinstatement mo sa PNP kung hindi mo susundin ang gusto nila.’ To which, Dumlao replied, ‘Eh di hindi na lang ako magpupulis. Magsasaka na lang ako.’ The lawyer added, ‘Mukhang nagkakasabwatan na sina Topacio at Estrada," Lacson narrated. (The lawyer told Dumlao, your reinstatement to the PNP will be stalled. Dumlao replied, then I'll just be a farmer. The lawyer said, there now appears to be an unholy alliance between Topacio and Estrada.) Lacson also noted that when Sen. Jinggoy Estrada delivered a counter-privilege speech last September 15, he cited an “opinion" from Topacio that Lacson masterminded the Dacer-Corbito disappearance. He lamented that Estrada has now joined the Arroyo government in trying to link him to the Dacer-Corbito case. Fabricated evidence Citing his Malacañang sources, Lacson said there had been a “clockwork" plan by former Presidential Security Group head and now Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp) chief Romeo Prestoza to have Mancao use “fabricated evidence" to implicate him in the case. Lacson cited Mancao’s radio interview on dzMM on August 12 last year, where he said Prestoza called him up while Mancao was in Florida, sometime in 2007. He also cited Mancao’s television interview on GMA-7 on August 6 last year, where he said he was being pressured to link Lacson to the case. He added that Mancao even sent him a text message assuring him of his loyalty. “On several occasions, Cezar Mancao had confided to some people when asked pointblank if this representation had anything to do with the Dacer-Corbito case. He told (anti-crime crusader) Teresita Ang-See that I had no participation, direct or otherwise," Lacson said. Lacson also questioned Mancao’s open court testimony last Sept. 3, when he said Lacson and former Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino supposedly discussed plans to neutralize Dacer while riding in Lacson’s car on the way to a Japanese restaurant somewhere Greenhills in September 2000. Yet, he said that in the early part of October 2000, Mancao went to Aquino’s office to ask him what the so-called “Operation Delta" was all about. Mancao supposedly asked Aquino if the special operation was cleared with Lacson, then PAOCTF chief. “Sila (Malacañang) na daw bahala sa kanya (Malacañang said they will take care of informing Lacson)," Aquino supposedly answered. “Why would Mancao need to ask Aquino about the operation in October if he already knew about it in September during the alleged car conversation? And, more incredibly, why would Mancao ask Aquino whether this representation knew of the operation if he already heard us talk about it in my car several days before? There is a plausible explanation. The September conversation in my car never happened!" Lacson said. Lacson said he is planning to file administrative and criminal charges against Topacio for claiming late August that Mancao had linked him to the case. He said Topacio clearly violated Rule 13.02 under Canon 13 of the Code of Professional Responsibility that states: “A lawyer shall not make public statements in the media regarding a pending case tending to arouse public opinion for or against a party." Who killed Edgar Bentain? Lacson's third bombshell linked former President Estrada to the disappearance and murder of casino worker Edgar Bentain more than 10 years ago. According to Lacson, a police officer whom he did not name reported “mission accomplished" to Estrada a day after Bentain was abducted and then killed in January 1999. “This much I can share, in the meantime, to our distinguished colleagues, the family of Mr. Bentain and the Filipino people. Sometime in the middle of January, 1999, one day after Edgar Bentain was abducted somewhere in Roxas Blvd. and killed somewhere in Laguna, a police officer went to Estrada's house on Polk Street in Greenhills, San Juan, and reported compliance of his mission. He said the "house occupant" - meaning Estrada - simply said, "Sige, sabihin mo sa mga bata, maraming salamat (Okay, tell the boys thank you very much),’" he said. Bentain was a video operator of a hotel casino where Estrada, then vice president and a candidate for president, played baccarat, a high-stakes card game. Bentain was suspected to have given an unflattering video of Estrada and Ang gambling to former film censors chief and Estrada critic Manuel Morato, who used it as an issue against Estrada. Lacson, however, did not give more details of the incident, saying he is still conducting his own investigation. “I did not identify the criminal simply because I did not have any participation or direct personal knowledge of these criminal activities while they were taking place years ago. My investigation is ongoing even as I speak today. But I have gathered enough facts and data to provide the useful leads to unmask the mastermind’s true identity and his active participation including other persons who were barely mentioned in the conduct of investigation," he said. Jinggoy's retort There was no immediate comment by Estrada on the speech, but his spokesperson said Lacson only ended up assailing the credibility of Mancao and Dumlao. "A statement by the Senator Lacson gave some important points: First, that Mancao's credibility is not to be trusted. Second, that Dumlao's credibility is not to be trusted either. This is bad for the Dacer case because now we will never know whether and when these two are speaking for personal convenience or in the interest of justice," said Margaux Salcedo in a press statement. "The good senator obviously just wants to clear his name. It is just unfortunate that his method of vindication is vindictiveness towards the Estradas," she added. Lacson's claims against Jinggoy and Estrada's involvement in large-scale illegal gambling reconfirms the allegations raised by Singson, which sparked an impeachment move against Estrada in Congress in 2000. When administration senators voted to reject the opening on an envelope that was supposed to contain evidence against Estrada, congressmen prosecuting the case walked out and joined street protests that eventually forced him to resign in January 2001. Estrada, along with Jinggoy and his wife Loi, would later be charged with plunder by the government of his successor, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In 2007, the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan acquitted Jinggoy and Loi and convicted Estrada, but President Arroyo granted him absolute pardon without his serving his prison sentence at the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa. One of the biggest ironies when the Estrada administration collapsed was that Lacson, who retired as national police chief, ran and won a seat in the Senate in the 2001 elections. Loi also won a seat during that same election, while Jinggoy ran and won his own seat in the 2004 elections. Jinggoy, who was seen alternately smirking and forcing a smile during Lacson's lengthy speech Tuesday, dared his fellow senator to charge him and his father in court if he has the evidence, and not "hide under the cloak of parliamentary immunity." But he begged off from questioning his colleague's expose, saying he will deliver his own privilege speech on Wednesday, just like he did after Lacson's first "bombshell" against the former president. No other senator stood to interpellate Lacson, prompting Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri to call on the chamber to "go back to work." With Amita O. Legaspi and Sophia M. Dedace, GMANews.TV