Lacson: 'I am a victim of persecution'

After a Manila court junked anew the plea of fugitive Senator Panfilo Lacson for a reinvestigation of the Dacer-Corbito double murder case in which he is a prime suspect, the senator claimed that he is a "victim of persecution." "I maintain that I am a victim of persecution because of my strong advocacy against graft and corruption during the past administration," Lacson said in a statement distributed to the media on Friday. "It is very unfortunate that the present Department of Justice and its prosecutors have become and continue to be tools for my persecution," Lacson said. In an order issued on December 22, Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 18 Presiding Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina said she will maintain her February 4 and July 23, 2010 rulings stating that a reinvestigation will be unnecessary. The court also sustained its ruling that Lacson's arrest warrant remains in effect. Lacson said Medina's denial of his motion for reconsideration "out of prudence and deference to the Court of Appeals ruling on my pending petition for certiorari assailing the finding of probable cause and the subsequent issuance of the warrant of arrest against me may not be prudent after all." Nonetheless, Lacson said, "I respect that order." Lacson lamented that "State Prosecutor Peter Ong and Secretary of Justice De Lima, gloating as they did after learning of the said order from the RTC," are winning the case against him, "even at the expense of justice itself." The senator likewise said he never asked for the DOJ to conduct a unilateral reinvestigation of the case, adding that only the court has the final say on his request. “What I simply asked was for DOJ to join and not oppose us in asking the court to have the matter reinvestigated taking into consideration new and compelling evidence," the senator said. He cited the most recent admission of former police Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao II that he only learned about the Dacer-Corbito murder only “after the fact," which Lacson said was an admission that Mancao fabricated his earlier testimony. Lacson, a former chief of the National Police, is currently in hiding after he was named as the prime suspect in the November 2000 killings of publicist Salvador “Bubby" Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito. Lacson has denied involvement in the crime and vowed not to surface unless a reinvestigation is conducted. Lacson left the country in January 5 this year, two days before the DOJ slapped murder charges against him for the Dacer-Corbito killings. At the time of the killings, Lacson was concurrent PNP chief and head of the now defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, the unit said to be behind the killings of Dacer and Corbito. – VVP, GMANews.TV