Hearings on raps vs Ping to resume

The joint hearings of three Senate committees on the alleged involvement of Sen. Panfilo Lacson in illegal activities will resume on Wednesday, Sen. Robert Barbers said yesterday.

After a two-week recess, the Senate resumes session today amid pressure to pass the anti-money laundering bill six days before the Sept. 30 deadline set by a multilateral task force.

Barbers, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, said Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop and Superintendents Francisco Villaroman and John Campos will also be given the chance to answer the charges leveled against them by former undercover police agent Mary "Rosebud" Ong.

Ong tagged the three

police officials as accomplices of Lacson, former chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), in drug trafficking, kidnapping and multiple murder.

Ong used to work as an undercover agent of the PNP Narcotics Group, then headed by Acop, that was apparently deeply involved in legitimate police operations which, she claimed, were turned into profit centers by some police officials.

She accused Acop, Villaroman and Campos of reselling shabu seized from alleged members of a Hong Kong-based triad.

While she did not directly accuse Lacson of involvement in drug trafficking, she hinted in her testimony before the joint hearings that Lacson was also involved in at least one big drug shipment from Hong Kong.

Lacson and Acop denied Ong’s allegations and turned the tables on her by saying she was a member of the triad who wanted to sabotage police operations against durg trafficking.

Barbers said the joint inquiry and all other hearings of other Senate committees would have to push through aside from the regular session.

Lacson had claimed the Senate was placed in a bind when it decided to investigate the accusation of military intelligence chief Col. Victor Corpus that Lacson was involved in a string of criminal activities.

Lacson said the Senate would have to complete the process no matter how damaging the accusations had become to him, to the Senate and other government institutions.

During the recess, Lacson went to the United States to gather evidence that he claimed would refute Corpus’ charge that Lacson laundered the proceeds of his alleged criminal activities in several banks in Hong Kong, Canada and the US.

Barbers said Lacson would have the opportunity to present the evidence he had gathered when the hearings tackle the money laundering charges against him.

So far, the joint hearings have only tackled the charges of drug trafficking plus kidnapping and multiple murder.

The joint hearings commenced shortly after Corpus accused Lacson of materially gaining from drug trafficking, smuggling and kidnapping and laundering the proceeds in banks abroad when he was still PNP chief.

The charge was initially based on the accusations of former PAOCTF civilian agent Angelo "Ador" Mawanay, who implicated Lacson and his aides at the PAOCTF in several crimes, including the kidnapping and murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November last year.

Corpus, who had been quietly coordinating with authorities in the US, later presented Ong and exposed Lacson’s alleged drug links. Ong’s revelation sparked intensified police anti-narcotics operations.

However, the accusations have also divided the Senate with the opposition closing ranks with Lacson and demanding Corpus and the government present evidence that would prove Lacson had been laundering ill-gotten wealth.

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez then assured that the US government, through its Attorney General, had committed to provide the results of its own investigation by this month.

However, the ongoing investigation on the terrorist attacks in Washington DC and New York will likely delay the arrival of the investigation’s probe in the US, Perez said.