MANILA, Philippines?With election fever gripping the country, Sen. Panfilo Lacson Monday claimed that deposed President Joseph Estrada had bullied Alfonso Yuchengco into selling his stake in Philippine Long Distance Co. (PLDT) to the group of Manuel V. Pangilinan.
Lacson said he would not be doing his duty as an elected official if he did not expose the character of Estrada, an actor who plans to run for president next year.
In a privilege speech titled ?Ang Dalawang Mukha ng Sining (Two Faces of the Arts),? Lacson, the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) during the Estrada administration, said that the former President also:
? May have something to do with the December 2000 murders of publicist Salvador ?Bubby? Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito.
? Intervened in the release of smuggled chicken and rice.
? Allowed ?jueteng? operations to flourish and even accepted payola from Ilocos Sur Gov. Chavit Singson.
Lacson said ?only the higher interest of nation and people, and the highest call of conscience? were impelling him to speak out.
?God save the Philippines from Joseph Ejercito alias Joseph Estrada,? said Lacson, who is supporting the presidential bid of Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III.
Lacson underscored the need for the ?straight and proper to prevail.?
He said Estrada had arm-twisted Yuchengco into selling his PLDT shares in August 1998 to Pangilinan?s group, the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co., which eventually gained control of the telecommunications firm.
Sinister behavior
The transaction showed Estrada?s ?other sinister behavioral patterns? that Lacson said ?must be told to the Filipino people.?
?In August 2008, in the early part of Mr. Estrada?s abbreviated presidency, Mr. Alfonso Yuchengco was pressured to sign the conveyance of his 7.75 percent PTIC (Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp.) holdings, equivalent to 18,720 shares to Metro Pacific, represented by Manuel Pangilinan,? Lacson said.
He said these PTIC holdings corresponded to 2,017,650 PLDT common shares. PTIC at the time holds the biggest single block at 21 percent of the telephone giant. [Before the deal with Yuchengco, First Pacific had finalized the sales agreement on only 47 percent of PTIC?44 percent from the Cojuangco family and 3 percent from Antonio Meer. First Pacific could not touch the balance of 46 percent of PTIC shares because these were owned by the formerly sequestered Prime Holdings Inc., a shell company owned by the Marcoses, which was being recovered by the government.]
Lacson said he learned later that Yuchengco was ?pressed to sign a waiver of his right of first refusal over the PTIC shares of the Cojuangco-Meer group.?
Trumped-up drug charges
The senator said he learned years later that Estrada, then two months into his administration, had used the PNP to harass Yuchengco?s son Tito ?with threat of arrest on some trumped-up drug charges to force his father, Mr. Yuchengco, to sell.?
Lacson said he learned that the Yuchengcos were angry at him in the mistaken belief that Estrada had ordered him to harass them so that the patriarch would sell his shares.
The senator said he was not aware of what had happened until later. ?And if for example, Mr. Estrada would order me to do such thing, I am certain I will not follow him,? Lacson said.
Corporate genius
?The bigger and more important question remains?What was the deal in pesos and centavos between Mr. Estrada and Mr. Pangilinan, if any? Or should we rather ask, ?How much was involved??? he said.
Estrada?s friend Mark Jimenez reportedly brokered the $750-million PLDT takeover and got a $50-million commission for it. Jimenez denied getting such amount.
Lacson also assailed Estrada for implicating him in the Dacer-Corbito murders and turned the tables on him.
Pointing out that Estrada had claimed he never dealt with officials other than the heads of agencies during his presidency, Lacson said this was not true.
?Yet, on so many occasions, I have personal knowledge on this, during his presidency, he was giving orders and instructions deep into the layers of the entire government bureaucracy, the PNP and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force,? Lacson said.
Oplan Delta
The senator made the statement as he lashed out at Estrada for accusing him of ?supervising? recent testimony on an alleged operation called Oplan Delta, which was aimed at neutralizing Dacer.
Lacson denied he knew about the operation, saying he only learned about it in the newspapers recently. ?Instead of just defending himself, why does he have to point a finger at someone else?? he asked.
Lacson has repeatedly denied involvement in the murders in which his former police aides Michael Ray Aquino, Cezar Mancao II and Glen Dumlao had been charged.
The case is being tried now in the Manila Regional Trial Court and is being investigated by the Department of Justice now that Mancao had implicated both Lacson and Estrada in the murders.
Illegal numbers game
Lacson said his relationship with Estrada soured since he took over as PNP chief in 1998 because the former President had wanted operations of the illegal numbers game jueteng to continue under his watch.
He spoke of two occasions when Estrada had asked him to allow jueteng to continue without interference from authorities.
The first time was in June 1998 when Estrada talked to him and when he expected to be told of his appointment as PNP chief.
But Lacson said Estrada spoke about jueteng and how he intended to deal with it during his presidency.
?He said: ?Ping, accommodate me on jueteng. You know, governors and mayors, especially those who helped me in the election, don?t have funds like the President?s social fund from Pagcor. They have lots of expenses and it?s only from jueteng where they can get money,?? Lacson said in Filipino.
He said he was shocked and told Estrada that jueteng was illegal and that the latter should not get into it because it would destroy them both.
Estrada brought up again jueteng to Lacson on the eve of his appointment as PNP chief on Nov. 15, 1999.
At Tagaytay Highlands in Cavite, Estrada told Lacson ?very seriously? on the need for them to allow jueteng to continue because many people were depending on it, the senator said.
On that same day, Estrada later announced in Malacańang that he was naming Lacson as PNP chief but the president still pressed him on jueteng.
Jueteng payola
Lacson recalled that he had told Estrada he did not want to have anything to do with the P5-million monthly jueteng payola being given by Singson to the PNP chief.
He said he learned four months after his appointment that Estrada had asked Singson to remit the payola intended for the PNP chief.
Lacson said his life started to become ?miserable? when he launched an anti-jueteng campaign. ?(F)or the most part of the second half of the year 2000, I was not welcome in the Palace due to my differences with President Estrada over the issue of jueteng,? he said.
Estrada would not talk to him and that he would ?deal directly with my subordinates at the PAOCTF (Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force) and the PNP, which I both headed in concurrent capacity.?
He said Estrada had even issued an order to then Interior Secretary Alfredo Lim taking away from him the authority to appoint and remove police officials down to the provincial director level.
The move, he said, was aimed at making his anti-jueteng operation fail.
Lacson said his friends would tell him later that Edsa II, which toppled Estrada in January 2001, ?would not have happened if I went along with Mr. Estrada and Governor Singson and altogether tolerated jueteng operations.
?This was because Bingo 2 ball was conceived to legalize jueteng and this caused the breakup between Estrada and Singson and eventually led to a second people power uprising in 2001,? Lacson said.
Chicken parts, rice
Lacson also claimed that Estrada had intervened in the release of smuggled shipments of dressed chicken parts from China and the United States as well as smuggled rice in Cebu.
He said Estrada had told him to pull out his men, who were staking out a shipment of dressed chicken parts coming from near the Manila Hotel, after telling him his men were harassing people there.
The shipment was eventually released. Lacson said he pointed this out to Estrada who in turn told him that he should have not pulled out his men.
He said he got dismayed by this because he realized that Estrada?s order for him to fight crime and corruption was just a ?moro-moro? (just for show).
He said that in August 2000, he learned that Estrada had ordered a subordinate at PAOCTF to release a shipload of smuggled rice.
Lacson said he would deliver another privilege speech on Monday to expose Estrada further this time based on investigations he made.
