SENATOR Panfilo Lacson said Sunday he will file charges of graft and economic sabotage against former Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon this week.
In an interview on radio dzBB, Lacson said Faeldon violated the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016.
“He was the commissioner and he was the one who asked that the smuggled rice be released,” Lacson said in Filipino.
Lacson said he was confident Faeldon would be the first person convicted for economic sabotage under the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act authored by Senator Cynthia Villar.
“This is a new law,” Lacson said.
“Nobody has yet been investigated for this. Senator Cynthia Villar challenged me, saying now that the law has passed, it’s not being implemented. So when we finished the case on Faeldon, I told her, Senator Cynthia, this is my gift to the law you worked hard to pass.”
He described the complaint as a test case, but he was sure Faeldon would be convicted because everything was documented.
Lacson said he has enough evidence, including documents and sworn affidavits, that will be sufficient to back the charges that he will file against Faeldon.
Lacson said his legal team is also studying Faeldon’s possible defense in the case.
He said his office has asked for additional documents and affidavits to make sure that the cases against Faeldon are airtight.
Faeldon’s lawyer and spokesman Jose Diño said, however, that Lacson still has “zero evidence” against the former Customs commissioner.
He said Lacson was just diverting the public’s attention from his “miserable inability to prove his malicious-falsities,” adding that the senator is just “floating equally-false, wild and laughable allegations on agricultural products smuggling and economic sabotage.”
“Indeed, his hallucinations know no bound,” Diño added.
