Kuratong rubout case refiled

Will he go into hiding again?

Just weeks after he surfaced from hiding after being charged with plotting to overthrow President Arroyo, Senator-elect Panfilo Lacson again faces arrest and possible detention without bail.

The Department of Justice filed yesterday multiple murder charges against Lacson and 37 other police officers and men for the alleged summary execution of 11 members of the Kuratong Baleleng gang in May 1995.

Government prosecutors want Lacson, who was just proclaimed senator by the Commission on Elections last Tuesday, detained without bail.

Also indicted in a Quezon City court for the alleged rubout were Chief Superintendents Jewel Canson, (MAD party-list nominee) Romeo Acop and Francisco Zubia; Senior Superintendents Michael Ray Aquino, Cesar Mancao III and Glenn Dumlao, and 31 other police officers.

Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño said the panel of prosecutors who handled the preliminary probe recommended no bail for Lacson and his co-accused, all former officials and members of the defunct Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC) and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

"We recommended no bail," he told reporters.

This is the second time the criminal case was filed in court since March 1999, but Zuño clarified there is "no double jeopardy" because no arraignment was held then.

Zuño said the filing of the charges rendered "moot and academic" the 23-page petition Lacson filed with the Court of Appeals late Wednesday which sought to prevent his indictment and stop the DOJ from pursuing its investigation.

Zuño brushed aside reports that the case was filed in haste.

"There’s nothing wrong with that. When Lacson filed the petition for a temporary restraining order, he has abandoned his right to file his counter-affidavit," Zuno pointed out, referring to Judge Herminia Pasamba’s refusal to issue a freeze order.

He said there was also no need for the justice department to furnish Lacson and his colleagues copies of the resolution because the charges should be filed first before they could be mailed to the respondents.

"When we file a case, we file the information together with the resolution. It is after the filing of the case that we furnish the respondents a copy of the DOJ resolution," he explained.

The case against Lacson and his co-accused was dismissed by Judge Wenceslao Agnir Holy Tuesday of 1999 after four witnesses – policemen Eduardo de los Reyes, Corazon de la Cruz, teener Jane Gomez and tabloid reporter Mandy Capili – retracted their affidavits. Only the testimony of radio technician Mario Enad remained.

Agnir was promoted Court of Appeals justice the following week.

Enad, along with Senior Superintendent Ysmael Yu and Abelardo Ramos and SPO2 Wilnor Medes will now be used to pin down the police officials for the killing of the suspected robbery gang members on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City in the early morning of May 18, 1995.

Free Legal Assistance Group lawyer Arno Sanidad said Ramos narrated in his affidavit that he shot the suspected bank robbers on "direct orders" of Zubia, then chief of the Traffic Management Command.

Yu, meantime, was among those who raided the house of alleged Kuratong Baleleng leader Wilson Soronda at Superville Subdivision in Parañaque on May 17, 1995, where the suspected bank robbers were arrested.

Sanidad and his colleagues Jose Manuel Diokno and Theodore Te said they expect the Arroyo administration to show political will by giving justice to the families of the victims of the alleged summary execution.

Sanidad said one of the reasons these officers decided to tell all is because Lacson is no longer in power, aside from the fact that the latter’s known benefactor – Joseph Estrada – was ousted from the presidency last Jan. 20.