Senator Panfilo Lacson. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines –“I will never forget that name Arroyo.”
So said Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, referring to former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Lacson, speaking at a regular forum in the Senate on Thursday, recalled how Arroyo and husband, Jose Miguel “Mike”, made his life “miserable” during the nine years that the former leader was in power.
“Yung nine years na pang aapi sa akin ng mag asawang Arroyo, yun ang talagang hindi ko makakalimutan mamatay na siguro ako,” he said.
“Mula 2001 hanggang bago sila umalis e talagang hindi ako tinigilan ng problema,” he said.
It was Mrs. Arroyo, who assumed the post vacated by ousted President Joseph Estrada in 2001.
In 2004, she ran for president and regained her seat in Malacanang until 2010.
Lacson revealed that at one point, he was offered through a common friend, to be Arroyo’s running mate.
And when Arroyo was just about to assume Estrada’s post in 2001, he was allegedly offered through then presumptive Executive Secretary Renato de Villa, an ambassadorial post, which he turned down.
Instead, Lacson said he insisted on his courtesy resignation as then chief of the Philippine National Police.
Lacson was PNP chief from 1999 to 2001.
“That was my first taste of frustration with Mrs. Arroyo.Two or three days after, nasa headline na I was sacked,” he said.
He said his second taste of frustration was when he was allegedly invited to a private dinner in an ancestral home of Mrs. Arroyo but was surprised days after to see then Secretary Rigoberto Tiglao telling the media that it was him who had requested for the meeting.
“And that’s the start of the miserable life of Senator Lacson, which lasted for nine years,” said the senator.
Asked if he was willing to reconcile with Mrs. Arroyo, Lacson then quoted former US President John F. Kennedy’s: “Forgive your enemies but don’t forget their names.”
“So I will never forget that name Arroyo,” he added.