FORMER President Estrada and Senator Ping Lacson stand accused of the double murders after former Senior Superintendent Cezar Mancao linked them to the killing of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito.

When I was a police reporter I learned there is no perfect crime, that the criminal, no matter how he is able to hide his crime, will be found out sooner or later.

Ironically, then First Lieutenant Ping Lacson, who was with the Metrocom Intelligence and Security Group, told me that when I was covering the Metrocom for the Manila Bulletin in the 1970s.

It seems that what Ping told me has come full circle.

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Erap and Lacson?s vehement denial is no match for the statement of Mancao about their involvement in the twin murders.

Mancao was Erap and Lacson?s trusted man first at the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission headed by then Vice President Erap, and later at the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, headed by then Philippine National Police Director General Lacson.

The courts will give credence to Mancao?s reason for spilling the beans on his former superiors: that he?s guilt-stricken and wants to make a clean breast of it.

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Iglesia ni Cristo Executive Minister Erano ?Ka Erdy? Manalo was a charismatic religious leader.

But unlike other charismatic leaders, Ka Erdy never took advantage of government leaders who groveled at his feet for votes.

Ka Erdy neither asked loans from the government nor sold his landholdings at criminally prohibitive price.

He was a pious man.

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Women?s groups and bleeding hearts denounce Chavit Singson, former Ilocos Sur governor and deputy national security adviser, for beating up his live-in partner whom he caught with another man.

I?m not saying he was right, but we should understand him in the context of our macho society.

Any other Filipino man who caught his wife or partner in bed with another man would have acted the same way Singson did. Or even worse.

Chavit forgave his partner, with whom he has five children, the first and second time she was unfaithful.

But a third time? There?s a limit to one?s ability to forgive, especially for a man like Chavit who doesn?t want to lose face with other men.

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Yes, we have a society that condones a philandering husband but looks down upon an unfaithful wife.

Even our justice system looks with understanding upon a husband who kills his wife and lover if he catches them in flagrante delicto.

But that?s the way it is in this country.

And it will take a generation to change society?s attitude toward women.

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Chavit didn?t tell me this, but one of his bodyguards did.

The lover of Singson?s live-in partner suffered a fate worse than death. We live it to your imagination.