Senate gives fugitive Lacson the defense, accounts committeesby Rey E. Requejo and Fel V. Maragay - Manila Standard TodayJuly 31,2010
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/july/31/news1.isx&d=2010/july/31

THE Senate on Friday assigned two key committees to fugitive Senator Panfilo Lacson, who has been in hiding since January to evade arrest for a 2000 double murder case in which he is the prime suspect.

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said Lacson would head the committee on national defense and the committee on accounts even as the Justice Department announced an intensified manhunt for the fugitive senator.

Lacson, who supported President Benigno Aquino III in the last election, fled the country on Jan. 5, shortly before charges were filed against him in court for the November 2000 murder of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.

Lacson said he could not expect justice under the previous Arroyo administration, but has not returned to face the charges against him even after President Aquino took office in June. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Friday urged Lacson to surrender and ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to step up its search for him.

"Senator Lacson cannot hide forever. The National Bureau of Investigation is under instruction to conduct an intensified hunt against him even before the court denied his motion to cancel his warrant of arrest," de Lima said. But she assured Lacson that he faced no political persecution under the Aquino administration.

"This is a criminal case and not a political offense. He is either part of it or not," she said.

"He should confront the charges; he should present his evidence. He should be able to substantiate whatever defenses he has in connection with that double-murder case."

De Lima said she would talk to Foreign Affairs about canceling Lacson's passport.

She made her statement after Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of the Manila Regional Trial Court denied a prosecution motion to order Lacson's passport canceled, saying that was within the jurisdiction of the Foreign Affairs Department.

At the same time, Medina sustained the decision on Feb. 5 of then Judge Myra Garcia-Fernandez to issue a warrant of arrest against Lacson after finding probable cause.

Medina took over the Dacer-Corbito case after Fernandez was promoted to associate justice of the Court of Appeals.

She also denied a motion by Lacson's lawyers for a re-investigation, saying that would cast doubt on the impartiality of the proceedings of the Justice Department.

Lacson left for Hong Kong Jan. 5, a few days before the Justice Department recommended the filing of charges against him. The prosecutors gave credence to a sworn statement by former police officer Cezar Mancao II, to the physical evidence gathered at the crime scene, and to the sworn statements of other witnesses. Mancao said in his sworn statement that Lacson had ordered the execution of Dacer and his driver.

Lacson's has been absent since January, but he has been drawing his salary, allowances and other benefits as a senator, and on Friday was given the chairmanship of two committees. In Lacson's absence, Sotto said, he would lead the committee on accounts while Senator Gregorio Honasan would head the committee on defense.

He said Lacson had sent word to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile requesting the two committees.

"I want him to handle [the committee on] accounts. He has handled it quite well," Enrile told journalists. The committee is responsible for overseeing the Senate's finances.

Enrile said assigning the two committees to Lacson was similar to giving the committee on civil service and government reorganization to Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who is still detained on coup and rebellion charges.

Also on Friday, Lacson's lawyer, Alex Avisado, said he would ask the Court of Appeals to overturn Medina's decision to disapprove a re-investigation.

Lacson had sent word that he would not come out of hiding unless the court granted his petition for a review of his case. Lacson was last spotted in Rome, but unconfirmed reports said he had slipped back into the country.