MANILA, Philippines - Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. denied on Thursday that he asked advice from former Senator Panfilo Lacson on how to evade possible arrest due to his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam.
While confirming that he met with Lacson after the 2013 midterm elections, Revilla claimed that he only discussed the local polls in Cavite with the former lawmaker and now rehabilitation czar.
In the recent national polls, Revilla's son Ramon Jolo defeated Lacson's son Jay in the vice-gubernatorial race after obtaining 602,796 votes, according to the Commission on Elections website.
"It is true that Senator Lacson and I met after the 2013 elections, but it was for the purpose of leaving the local elections in Cavite behind us," Revilla said in a statement shown in a television report on ANC.
"To impute any malice to that meeting is foul. I did not consult him on how he evaded the law, much more prod him to tell me," he added.
Revilla is one of the personalities implicated in the pork barrel scam along with Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada.
Earlier this week, the Office of the Ombudsman issued a resolution ordering the filing of plunder charges against the three senators and several others before the Sandiganbayan.
In a privilege speech in January, Revilla again denied that he amassed kickbacks from the pork barrel funds channeled to bogus non-government organizations of suspected scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.
Lacson, on the other hand, faced charges for allegedly masterminding the abduction and murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and driver Emmanuel Corbito.
In 2010, before the charges against him were filed, he left the country and went into hiding.
He returned in 2011, the same year when the charges against him were withdrawn. - Louis Bacani