DOJ asks for more time on Ping papers

The face-off between Sen. Panfilo Lacson and Justice Secretary Hernando Perez will have to wait as evidence of the alleged money laundering activities of the senator have yet to arrive from the United States’ Attorney General.

At the end of the Senate inquiry into the reported illegal drug links of Lacson last Friday, Sen. Robert Barbers said the justice department asked for time to submit documents to prove that Lacson stashed millions of dollars in several banks in the US, Hong Kong and Canada.

Perez informed the Senate that the recent terror attacks on New York and Washington made US authorities too busy to attend to the Philippine government’s request for documents on Lacson’s accounts.

Barbers, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, said he and Senators Joker Arroyo and Ramon Mag—saysay Jr., chairmen of the Blue Ribbon and national defense and security committees, respectively, would jointly decide when to resume the joint hearing.

Last Friday, former undercover agent Mary "Rosebud" Ong presented documents supposedly establishing links between Lacson and the Narcotics Group, led by Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop and Superintendents John Campos and Francisco Villaroman, to the abduction and summary execution of suspected Chinese drug lords in 1999.

Ong said Lacson, then the chief of the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, knew about all these cases but did not act on them despite appeals from Chinese and Philippine authorities.

A former aide of Campos, Remus Garganera, corroborated Ong’s claims, saying he acted as auditor of the proceeds from illegal drug sales of Ong and Campos.