Senator Panfilo Lacson on Friday slammed unscrupulous individuals who posted his photo on social media insinuating he is posturing for the May 2022 presidential elections.
Lacson ordered his staff to identify the persons responsible for the malicious circulation of his picture with the caption “P-angulong I-aayos N-a muli ang G-obyerno” (the initials patterned after his nickname, Ping), which his office has already reported to Facebook as it is unauthorized.
“It is a dirty hatchet job, to put it mildly — being circulated at a time when some propagandists, with the aid of troll farms, are accusing me of politicking by criticizing the handling of the pandemic,” he said.
“Now comes this photo to make it appear that I’m really politicizing the situation – and nothing can be further from the truth,” the senator added.
Lacson has repeatedly said he has not decided on his political plans, if any, for the 2022 elections.
He noted the photo was circulated days after Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque accused those who criticized the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic of politicking during President Rodrigo Duterte’s televised address to the nation Monday night.
“Just because I criticize, pamumulitika na?” Lacson had replied to Roque, in a post on his Twitter account.
In 2004, Lacson ran for president without a political party against the incumbent president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who won the elections. He finished third with 10.88% of the vote. The late actor Fernando Poe Jr. also ran and placed second to Arroyo in the same presidential race.