By Mata Press Service
Philippines Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson was one of the harshest critics of Canada’s extradition system.
Now on the run, Lacson, is likely to consider the very system he lambasted while in office, his safe haven.
“If he gets into Canada and claims refugee status, it will be tough for the Philippines to get him back,” said a RCMP officer, familiar with Lacson’s Canadian connections.
At Press Time, Manila had launched a global manhunt against the fugitive senator who has been accused of masterminding the killings of two people nearly a decade ago.
A local court judge ordered Lacson arrested on charges he masterminded the November 2000 killings of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.
Lacson, who was the country’s police chief at the time of the killings, stands accused of ordering the hit with the approval of then-president Joseph Estrada.
Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito, were snatched from a Manila street and were later found strangled and burned. Investigators identified their corpses using dental records.
Estrada, who has denied any involvement in the killings, was not charged because of a lack of evidence.
Before his death, Dacer was allegedly helping opposition groups gather information about the corrupt activities of Estrada, who was ousted by a military-backed mass uprising in 2001 and convicted of corruption in 2007.
In a statement issued to the media earlier, Lacson said he fled the Philippines to escape alleged harassment perpetrated by current president Gloria Arroyo and her supporters.
“I will not allow Mrs. Arroyo and her cohorts ... the pleasure of seeing my life miserable and in danger,” Lacson said. “I am not guilty, but I cannot risk putting my life and security at the mercy of that evil conspiracy.”
Immigration officials said Lacson left for Hong Kong on Jan. 5.
This week Manila issued a worldwide Interpol notice to arrest the fugitive senator, who once ran for The Philippines presidency.
In 2007, Lacson raged against Canada for what he described as a country which had become a haven for fugitives.
He made his comments to Canadian media at the Philippine Senate after Canada refused to send home accused Filipino political assassin Rodolfo Pacificador.
Pacificador, who is a free man in Toronto, was wanted in the Philippines for his alleged role in the assassination of provincial governor Evelio Javier in 1986. He followed the lead of fellow Ferdinand Marcos crony Dewey Go Dee, another Filipino who won asylum in Canada.
Another case still pending before the courts involves Gloria Chingkoe of Richmond, accused with her husband Faustino of allegedly defrauding the Philippines government of $75 million.
These decisions which included a chastisement by the Canadian court that the Philippines criminal procedures and punishments were “simply unacceptable” outraged Manila.
“It’s an unfair indictment of the Philippine justice system,” raged Sen. Panfilo Lacson in Manila. “I don’t think Canada has that moral authority over Philippine courts. An extradition treaty is an extradition treaty; it should be honoured.”
“That these fugitives can roam around freely in Canada, that is an injustice to say the least.”
Lacson, a veteran politician, has some troubling connections with Canada;
• Lacson, when he was police chief, used Vancouver Triad gangster Steven Lik Man Wong as a confidential informant. The gangster had faked his own death to avoid arrest and had fled to the Philippines. Another police undercover agent Mary Ong aka Rosebud claimed that Lacson had terminated an operation to nab Wong after she linked the Canadian gangster to a powerful clan from Lacson’s home province of Cavite.
• Mary Ong, who is in protective custody at a Filipino army base, also claims that several high profile police officers in Lacson’s private anti-drug task force have settled in Canada after allegations that they had killed traffickers by throwing them off helicopters and stealing their loot.
• In 2003, Lacson, faced accusations that he, and his wife, had secret deposits in a Canadian financial institution and 16 other bank accounts in Hong Kong and the United States, totaling over US$700 million. The money, police said in a report to Philippine president Gloria Arroyo is believed to have been amassed by Lacson and his cronies since 1996 from drug smuggling, money laundering operations and the kidnapping for ransom of Chinese businessmen in Manila.
• Former police Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino who worked in Lacson’s inner circle fled the Philippines for Canada on July 27, 2001 after he was implicated in the murder of publicist, Salvador Dacer, the summary execution of members of an illegal betting syndicate and after his police team was investigated for using navy divers to pick up heroin dropped from Chinese shipping vessels in Manila Bay. He is believed to have used fake passports to sneak out of the Philippines via Mactan International Airport in Cebu on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong en route to Las Vegas and later Canada.
Later that same year Aquino and others were stopped by Canadian Customs in Halifax for not declaring some US$30,000 they were carrying. Aquino had also tried to smuggle one million dollars from Canada into America via the Buffalo border crossing. The money confiscated at the border crossings had been linked to Lacson. One of Lacson and Aquino’s contacts in Canada was then identified as businessman Jerome Tang. Tang’s daughter is reportedly Lacson’s godchild.
• Lacson’s office cleared controversial Macau casino king Stanley Ho of links to organized crime after a secret Canadian report on the latter’s underworld connections was made public in Manila in 2000. Ho, who has extensive interests in Canada was planning to open a floating restaurant in Manila Bay. The confidential report detailed in part the business operations of Ho and his possible links to triads. Lacson who was the head of the Philippine National Police then said he had “nothing incriminating” on Ho, who took out ads in the Philippines to decry the claims made in the Canadian report.
• The current case against Lacson includes an allegation that he masterminded the murder of publicist Salvador Dacer. Dacer was killed at the height of a stock scandal involving BW Resources, the Filipino business arm of Stanley Ho. Investigators in the Philippines believe that Dacer had documents implicating a Filipino tycoon, Dante Tan and former President Joseph Estrada in the massive stock manipulation. Canadian and American intelligence reports have detailed the connections Ho, Lacson and Estrada in the BW Resources incident.
• In 2003, after Lacson, Ho and Estrada denied all the allegations against them, the fugitive senator fired his own salvo against president Gloria Arroyo and her husband, who he said were behind all the false claims against him. He accused the president’s husband of laundering millions from corrupt deals, of operating secret bank accounts and of giving cronies lucrative official posts, including the head of the national gaming corporation and the Manila airport authority. Lacson and his allies claimed that the president’s husband was also having an affair with his personal assistant, Victoria Toh, who holed up in Vancouver while refuting the steamy allegations. Lacson also claimed that besides using the false name Jose Pidal to launder funds, the President’s husband allegedly hid tens of millions in the bank accounts of Victoria Toh, her brother Thomas Jr., who is in Canada, and her brother-in-law Kelvin Tan.
Lacson’s ally Senator Sergio Osmena III also insinuated that some of the cash was used to buy a C$850,000 house in Vancouver. None of the claims were proven.