MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Panfilo Lacson was not only the “best crime writer” but also a wiretapper and killer, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada Wednesday said in a privilege speech aimed at countering the charges Lacson had hurled against him and his father.

Jinggoy Wednesday cited the Kuratong Baleleng rubout and other cases involving Lacson when he was a police official in an attempt to portray the latter as the real bad guy and not him and his father, former President Joseph Estrada.

“Let our people be the judge,” Jinggoy said, asserting that he and his father were “not criminals, and much less killers.”

Saying this would be his “last” privilege speech on the matter and refusing again to address Lacson as a senator, Jinggoy twitted the latter for delivering “fiction part one” and “fiction part two,” in reference to the latter’s two privilege speeches.

“President Estrada may be a Famas Hall of Fame as five-time best actor. Mr. Lacson, however, has now earned the reputation as the best writer of crime stories where he excels best,” he said.

Jinggoy said the latest allegations Lacson hurled against him and his father were nothing but “tall-tale stories filled with blind items” as he lashed out at the “three mini stories” the former police chief delivered the other day in a privilege speech.

Noting that Lacson’s mini stories were supposed to be taken from telephone conversations, Jinggoy said that if these were so, the former “must have illegally obtained these through wiretapping.”

“These are stuff that only a diabolical mind such as Mr. Lacson can be capable of doing,” he said.

Without naming names, Lacson had spoken about a conversation between two persons, both in the United States at the time in which Voice No. 1 (supposedly Jinggoy) asked Voice No. 2 (supposedly Atong Ang, a gambling buddy of Estrada) in 2006 not to implicate him or his mother.

Voice No. 2 was about to be extradited to testify in a plunder case at the Sandiganbayan involving a longtime friend and former president, according to Lacson.

Voice No. 1 asked Voice No. 2 to just implicate his father (supposedly Estrada) because he could defend himself.

‘Jueteng’ payola

Lacson also related a conversation between a son of a President asking a “jueteng” operator to give the share of his brother’s cut in the illegal number game to him lest the latter use it to buy drugs.

Lacson also spoke about a person asking a Cabinet member to give him a project after losing P10 million in gambling.

“If I am being alluded (to) in these stories about jueteng payola, I deny these accusations,” Jinggoy said, reminding Lacson he had been acquitted from the jueteng charges filed against him in 1999.

Dacer-Corbito murders

Pointing out that Lacson and not his father was involved in the 2000 murder of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito, Jinggoy quoted excerpts from a Sept. 3, 2009, testimony given by Lacson’s former police aide Cezar Mancao II.

Mancao said he overheard Lacson, then the head of the Philippine National Police, order the killing of former police official Reynaldo Berroya and Dacer, according to Jinggoy.

As if to show Lacson had the motive for killing Dacer, Jinggoy quoted a letter that Dacer wrote former National Security Adviser Jose Almonte on July 27, 1999, in which he said Lacson “concocted and spread lies” to implicate him in destabilization plots against the then Estrada administration.

Dacer also wrote Estrada on Oct. 8, 1999, this time signifying his opposition to the appointment then of Lacson as PNP chief, according to Jinggoy.

He also quoted the July 11, 2008, testimony given by Dacer’s daughter Sabina Reyes in court in which she recalled two or more incidents when her father told his children that “if something bad happens to (him), Lacson would be behind it.”

“All these indicate the culpability of Mr. Lacson which he is now extricating himself and implicating President Estrada to draw attention from him,” Jinggoy said.

Police aides

Further hinting that Lacson was involved in the murders, Jinggoy mentioned Lacson’s confession the other day that he had been supporting the family of his former police aides.

Jinggoy said that it was Lacson who ordered his men to flee the country and that he did not inform his father about this, making his father unable to help them.

If his father was involved, shouldn’t he support the former police officers financially? Jinggoy asked.

“Why did Mr. Lacson take this alternative instead of letting them stay here and answer the charges against them?” Estrada said.

Jinggoy pointed out that although his father was deposed from power, he chose to stay in the Philippines to answer the charges made against him.

“Why did Mr. Lacson asked his three subordinates instead to leave the country? Is it because he knew that he would be implicated?” he asked.

Missing casino worker

Jinggoy also questioned how Lacson knew details of the disappearance and murder of casino worker Edgar Bentain, noting that before the senator’s revelation, Bentain was considered a missing person.

Bentain went missing in January 1999. He was the source of a videotape that showed then Vice President Estrada playing high-stakes baccarat at Heritage Hotel with his friend Atong Ang in 1998.

“It was only after Mr. Lacson’s speech that the whole nation came to know that Mr. Bentain was abducted somewhere on Roxas Boulevard and killed somewhere in Laguna,” Jinggoy said.

He also chided Lacson for not identifying the persons behind Bentain’s murder after the latter claimed that a police officer went to report to a house on Polk Street in Greenhills about accomplishing the mission to kill the casino worker.

The deposed President resides at No. 1 Polk St. in Greenhills, San Juan City.

No motive

Jinggoy asked why Lacson did not investigate the case when he was then the chief of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, who eventually became PNP chief.

He said his father had no motive of having Bentain killed because Estrada “overwhelmingly” won the presidency in 1998 “despite that propaganda against him.”

“What motive would President Estrada have to order the abduction and killing of Mr. Bentain six months into his presidency?” he asked.

Kit Mateo

It was at this point that Jinggoy played a video clip of Francisco “Kit” Mateo, a former policeman who had served as an informant of Lacson.

Mateo pointed to Lacson as the one responsible for the killing of police Capt. Jimmy Victorino and of two female relatives (a 20-year-old woman and an 8-year-old child) of Joey de Leon, the slain Red Scorpion Group leader. Mateo later recanted his statements.

Jinggoy then mentioned the fact that the Senate of the 9th Congress had recommended murder or homicide charges filed against Lacson and other officers for the Kuratong Baleleng rubout. Members of the gang had been engaged in kidnapping and bank robbery.

Jinggoy accused Lacson of smearing his father’s name by using the Bentain case when the latter had not offered any solid evidence to connect his father to Bentain’s disappearance.

“It is for this reason that I now recall the Kuratong Baleleng and other cases because there are solid statements, investigations and recommendations,” he said.

Jinggoy said the Bentain family was disappointed because Lacson had failed to deliver “but instead use the chamber as a platform to malign President Estrada.”

Go to court

Jinggoy reiterated his call for Lacson to go to court with his allegations.

“He should now stop using the hallowed halls of this august body as his venue to besmirch the reputation of President Estrada,” he said.

Jinggoy said he and his father have nothing to hide.

“As no less than our Senate President has said, we are not perfect, we may have our flaws but certainly we are not criminals, and much less killers,” he said.