Bacolod City — Rep. Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo (Neg. Occ., 5th district) yesterday said the plan of Sen. Panfilo Lacson to resurrect the “Jose Pidal” controversy was “a shameless and monumental waste of time and resources.”
On Monday, Lacson told reporters at Camp Crame that he has new evidence that would prove that Arroyo, brother-in-law of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was not Jose Pidal, and would reveal the real person behind the name.
The real Jose Pidal comes from the Arroyo family also, Lacson said.
In 2003, Lacson had claimed that then First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo kept multimillion-peso secret bank accounts under the name of Jose Pidal. The Negros solon, however, claimed that he, not his brother, was Jose Pidal.
“I hope Sen. Ping Lacson will be man enough and civil enough to admit his mistake this time,” Arroyo said.
He said that for Lacson, truth was not what it was but how the senator wants it to be.
Arroyo pointed out that he had publicly admitted during the previous administration that he was Jose Pidal and had even given specimen signatures then.
The opposition then presented a supposed handwriting expert to dispute my claim but it turned out that the person did not even have enough credentials to be called an expert.
“A Senate probe was conducted but no wrongdoing on our part was proven. No other supposed expert was presented by the opposition. So why should Sen. Lacson waste time on another replay? For media mileage?” Arroyo asked.
Arroyo also noted that all the banks that had been linked to the Pidal controversy issued individual certifications that they had no account under that name when Lacson talked about it in the Senate.
“In other words, there was nothing wrong. There was nothing illegal so there’s no need to repeat everything all over again. The only one who will benefit from a replay is Sen. Lacson himself through the publicity it will generate,” Arroyo said.
Instead of replaying the Pidal controversy, Arroyo said it would be wiser for Lacson to spend his time focusing on his main job which is to write laws.
“I wonder how many bills Sen. Lacson has authored, principally, so far since he became a senator,” Arroyo added. /INQUIRER