Lacson vows: ‘There’s no turning back – I am running for President!’

That’s what Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson declared yesterday, categorically dousing speculation that he is planning to drop out of the race.

In a three-hour discussion with this writer, he scored Malacañang as being behind the "disinformation" about his supposed withdrawal in favor of another opposition candidate (FPJ, who else?) as part of the "ongoing demolition job" focused on him.

"I’m as determined as ever to run for president. There is no turning back. I will win!" You’ve got to give the fighting former National Police director general and nemesis of the alleged "Jose Pidal" top marks for moxie, guts, determination and self-confidence.

Lacson, who’s running under the banner of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) – Butz Aquino versus Ed Angara faction, of course – further rejected the idea that his "scheduled meeting in April" (yes, April) with Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino (KNP) presidential challenger Fernando Poe Jr. (alias Ronald Allan Poe) presaged a deal with FPJ which would have him (Lacson) dropping out of the race and backing up Poe instead. He said that the meeting is part of the continuing dialogue between the two presidential contenders to "preserve the unity of the opposition" in order that President Macapagal-Arroyo, taking advantage of the division, might not sneak through to win.

He also shrugged off the latest survey results published by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) indicating that he was trailing far behind FPJ, GMA, and Aksyon Demokratiko’s Raul Roco. He asserted that "internal surveys" being conducted by politicians and other independent groups in their bailiwicks showed that he had a strong chance of "making it," despite all the ballyhooed odds.

"You’ll be surprised," he said. "Everyone will be surprised!"

"Surveys," Ping Lacson insisted, "don’t dictate who will be the next President. Elections are based on the track record and character of the candidates. I have a sterling track record as former law enforcer and chief of the Philippine National Police. This, combined with my strong character as a disciplinarian, will attract the people’s vote in the coming elections."

Lacson admitted he had been talking to FPJ, but "no deals have been offered or made." He declared that the vicious rumors that he had been demanding "concessions" (such as a guarantee that his so-called campaign manager, San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, be made speaker of the House of Representatives.

"You’ll be surprised," he said. "Everyone will be surprised!"

"Surveys," Ping Lacson insisted, "don’t dictate who will be the next President. Elections are based on the track record and character of the candidates. I have a sterling track record as former law enforcer and chief of the Philippine National Police. This, combined with my strong character as a disciplinarian, will attract the people’s vote in the coming elections."

Lacson admitted he had been talking to FPJ, but "no deals have been offered or made". He declared that the vicious rumors that he had been demanding "concessions" (such as a guarantee that his so-called campaign manager, San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, be made speaker of the House of Representatives plus certain Cabinet positions) as "sheer nonsense".

"There has absolutely been no horse-trading. Why should here be?" Ping averred.

* * *

You have to take the statements and pledges of politicians, even a tough guy like former supercop Lacson, naturally, with the proverbial grain of salt. Somebody, after all, pledged not to run for re-election, ‘di ba?

A British politician once tartly remarked that "a week is a long time in politics". Who knows what might develop next week, or next month? Since politics has, for years, been defined as "the art of the possible", anything is possible in the hothouse politics of our tropical Philippines. While the Asian stock markets are reeling over fears of the expansion of the deadly "bird flu" (with 12 human fatalities in Vietnam and Thailand – and counting), here we’re still consumed with political influenza, and the official "campaign period" is not even starting until next Tuesday, February 10.

Remember what the famous Irish playwright and dramatist George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) said: "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

This is a familiar quote from his Man and Superman, written in 1903. It is from the same sardonic play that Shaw’s most oft-repeated aphorism comes: "There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it."

There’s no doubt that Lacson has been trailing in the poll surveys, from the lately "controversial" SWS findings to the Pulse Asia. Yet, who can tell who’ll streak through to victory in the end?

Ping is running a rather eccentric campaign. He has chosen not to field a Vice Presidential runningmate nor even a Senate ticket. What does he think he is? The Lone Ranger, with not even a Tonto – kemo sabé?

Yet, Lacson – a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy Class 1971 (a classmate, for example, of the controversial fellow Senator and ex-putschist, RAMrod Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, and GMA’s loyalist, Transportation and Communications Secretary and also ex-PNP Director General Larry Mendoza) – has, as he mentioned, a two-fisted record as a real-life "action man".

He fought the New People’s Army, was one of Abadilla’s dirty dozen during martial law and, as PNP Director General under former President Joseph Estrada, put the fear of Lacson, if not God, into the uniformed hooligans of the PNP.

The first thing he did was seize 600 – not just 300 – stolen vehicles which were being blatantly and insolently utilized by police officers and their families, and return these strangely purloined vehicles to their grateful owners.

He told me he had cashiered – i.e., fired – 2,000 policemen during his relatively brief stint as Police Director General, "but many (he groused) were subsequently reinstated!"

As for kidnapping, it’s clear that kidnapping declined during his stewardship of the police establishment. Did he or his boys deal the "death penalty" to discourage kidnapping, as both friends and enemies speculate? Whatever was done or not, sus the courts including the Supreme Court keep on resurrecting that Kuratong Baleleng charge, Lacson rode roughshod of the kidnapping syndicates. As for the accusations hurled by Major General Victor N. Corpus, former Intelligence Chief (ISAFP), now the Malacañang-based Civil Relations Service Chief (in charge of the Palace War Room) that he was narco-supported and had multimillion-dollar overseas bank accounts, Lacson snorted yesterday that Corpus could never substantiate those lies and slanderous accusations. (He didn’t even mention government "witness" Ador Mawanay of cellphone notoriety, who later flipflopped on his accusations, and even blamed Corpus for forcing him to tell those windies.)

As for General Corpus ungallantly and meanly speaking out of turn "again", by sneering at Senator Loren Legarda – who’s running for Vice-President as FPJ’s team-mate in the KNP – Lacson exclaimed: "What can you expect of somebody like Corpus?"

* * *

As for myself, I was both dumbfounded and disgusted at this uncouth and uncalled-for remark from Corpus, who was worse in his time, an ideological balimbing, who swung from Philippine Army First Lieutenant and PMA instructor to New People’s Army rebel.

In fact Corpus had raided the PMA armory in 1970 when he was "Officer of the Day," and took off with 43 Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs), some machine guns, and a few bazookas, and brought them along with him to arm the NPA. He fought the government as an NPA commander between 1970 to 1976, after which he attempted to surrender to a former PMA classmate but was declared "captured" instead and thrown into military prison. I know because victor, who hails from Vigan (Ilocos Sur), visited me in my home in San Juan just before the "surrendered", and told me of his coming recantation.

In any event, in a candid interview he gave to our Chief European Correspondent and Paris Bureau Chief Vi Gomez Massart in Utrecht, Holland, only last January 12, Communist Party Chieftain and Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front, Jose Maria (Joma) Sison, confirmed Corpus’ coordination with him in the raid on the military academy’s armory in 1970. Joma told Massart that "the raid (by Corpus) on the PMA armory was very timely because the NPA had received a heavy blow that year when the military had pounced on a force of 60 NPA men and all their 60 rifles were lost. So we needed new arms!"

Sison said Corpus had "reached the highest position in the NPA Command as Head of the Training Department".

The above is quoted verbatim from the still unpublished minutes of that lengthy interview given by Joma – now 65 – to Massart.

As a matter of fact, when I spoke before the National Defense College of the Philippines last January 27 (Tuesday last week) in Camp Aguinaldo, and afterwards led the Roundtable Discussion, General Corpus was one of my interlocutors, and I had read out the entire transcript of Sison’s remarks about Victor.

Corpus himself had eloquently defended himself against criticisms in the media, which indicates that he can be like that character in the Mother Goose nursery rhyme. You know – the "little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead." (Not to equate Corpus with any femininity because, for all his warts, he‘s a very manly soldier, or NPA warrior, or whatever.) But the nursery rhyme said of the girl with a curl: "When she’s good, she’s very, very good, but when she’s bad, she‘s horrid." In his bad moments, Vic Corpus can be horrid indeed.

Incidentally, Joma was queried by Massart about Ping Lacson, too – and paid him the highest left-handed tribute. Of Lacson, the self-exiled Communist Supremo, or ex-Supremo, exclaimed: "He is dangerous, a fascist!"