Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Sunday, May 24 urged authorities to boost its intelligence work as it is key to tracking down and arresting high-profile personalities wanted by law enforcement.

Lacson, a former national police chief, pointed this out when asked what advice he can give to law enforcement agencies who are now looking for Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, who has been labeled a fugitive by the government.

The same also applies, he said, when looking for “prominent” fugitives like Charlie “Atong” Ang, former Gen. Gerald Bantag and even former Rep. Zaldy Co.

“As one who worked in law enforcement, intelligence for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between. Intelligence is the prime mover of any operation, law enforcement or military,” Lacson said in a mix of English and Filipino in an interview on Radio DZBB.

“Intel work is very important, without intel work you are wasting resources. Intel work is not just about fielding people, it's important to give signal intelligence, technical intelligence. You can get a lot of information there, I just hope law enforcers eat intel for breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight snack, snacks so their work is easier,” he pointed out.

Lacson, who served in law enforcement - including as Chief of the Philippine National Police from 1999 to 2001 - was dela Rosa's superior in the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

The senator said he also finds it an awkward situation when law enforcers who are supposed to serve a warrant would fail to arrest the person subject of an arrest warrant.

Lacson said he believes that if there was a determined effort to arrest Dela Rosa, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should have deployed men—not two women—to serve the existing arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in that case, was being carried by former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.

“My advice to law enforcement is that they should do a good job in searching, it's an awkward situation where the one they were supposed to arrest is already at arms length, but was still able to flee,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, Lacson criticized some lawyers for being manipulative and misleading, especially one who tried to force a comparison between his case and that of dela Rosa, stressing that his situation is different from that of his colleague.

He said not all lawyers are created equal: “Some just pretend and some learned and studied hard, some are dumb and lazy, some are devious and do nothing worthwhile but force their fake knowledge on others.”

The senator was pointing to the claim of one “lawyer” that he had gone into hiding after being subject of an arrest warrant.

Lacson said Dela Rosa has made himself scarce as he is the subject of an arrest warrant from the ICC, but Lacson said he did not break the law when he went into hiding as a “fugitive from injustice” in the 2010s.

The lawmaker cited the then-applicable jurisprudence (Miranda v Tuliao) that allowed an accused to seek judicial relief even if he is not under the court's physical custody. Lacson was eventually acquitted and the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling.

But this jurisprudence has since been modified since late 2025, limiting such an option to six months, according to Lacson.

“I did not break the law because there was the jurisprudence from the Miranda v Tuliao case,” Lacson said.

“I believe I am a fugitive from injustice because (then President and now Representative) GMA (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) wants to imprison me, and the witness was an incredible witness. The judge who issued the warrant (against me) became a justice after two weeks,” he recalled.

“Why would I submit to it? I never imagined even in my wildest dreams that GMA would see me behind bars for even a minute. That's why I fought my case while I was hiding,” he explained.

“If my judicial relief was denied, I would then decide whether to surrender or hide, and I was proven right because the CA (Court of Appeals) dismissed the warrant and declared (former police officer Cezar) Mancao (II) an incredible witness,” he stressed.