To The Manila Times: We again write to dispel yet another malevolent attack by Rigoberto Tiglao against Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson, in his July 31, 2026 column, this time insinuating — again, without basis — that the increase in Senator Lacson’s net worth was linked, among other things, to brokering the land for the new Senate building.
Setting the record straight, again, on alleged Lacson unexplained wealth
By Letters to the Editor, Aug. 3, 2026
WE again write to dispel yet another malevolent attack by Rigoberto Tiglao against Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson, in his July 31, 2026 column, this time insinuating — again, without basis — that the increase in Senator Lacson’s net worth was linked, among other things, to brokering the land for the new Senate building.
Apparently undeterred by our previous fact-checking of his claims, Tiglao now tries to fill in the details of the legitimate real estate transactions and other private business ventures that Senator Lacson cited in explaining the rise in his net worth, with the method those of Tiglao’s caliber apparently know best — guesswork at best, and falsehood at worst.
Tiglao’s insinuation that Senator Lacson may have been the broker of the land purchased in 2018 for P1.8 billion for the new Senate building is laughable. Senator Lacson worked on the New Senate Building as part of his official duties as chairman of the Senate Committee on Accounts at the time.
It is also worth noting that the Senate purchased the property from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) — a transaction between two government entities. So how could Senator Lacson have “brokered” it, much less profited from it? His decades-long, unblemished track record of integrity speaks for itself.
To turn that official responsibility into an insinuation of a private business transaction requires not evidence but a particularly fertilizer-rich imagination.
Even more laughable is Tiglao’s questioning why Senator Lacson did not include in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) his stint as independent director of Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc. from July 2022 to 2023.
While Tiglao claims to be a journalist, a real one would know that a SALN covers only the period during which a person is a public official. Senator Lacson was a private citizen between July 2022 and 2023.
More importantly, a real journalist would know how to look for facts instead of substituting them with guesswork — the latter being what the industry might describe diplomatically as fertilizer, and more directly as bullshit.
Significantly, Tiglao himself concedes that “none of this proves Lacson did anything illegal,” thus torpedoing the premise of his own column. Having acknowledged the absence of evidence, he nevertheless proceeds to invite readers to draw precisely the conclusion that his own words say cannot be supported.
Tiglao may have conveniently forgotten that the burden is on the accuser to substantiate allegations, not on the subject to disprove every hypothetical scenario the accuser can imagine. If he has evidence that any property transaction involving Senator Lacson violated tax, registration, or disclosure laws, he should present it to the proper authorities instead of relying on innuendo. The absence of publicly available details identifying private assets is not, by itself, evidence of unexplained wealth. Nor does couching an accusation as a series of questions insulate its author from accountability for what he publishes.
Tiglao’s column thus appears to follow a curious formula: reach the conclusion first, then search for something — anything — that might support it. In short: “Ah basta!” That is not an investigation; it is confirmation bias with a deadline.
Meanwhile, Tiglao questions my existence, at least as the person who signed the previous response, because he supposedly cannot find a sufficient “digital footprint” for me. So, by Tiglao’s journalistic standard, if Google or Meta cannot find you, you do not exist. The media industry has another term for this: trabahong tamad.
Readers of The Manila Times deserve evidence, not insinuation; facts, not conjecture. Repeating suspicions in increasingly elaborate prose does not transform them into proof.
We hope this sets the record straight on yet another fictional yarn spun by Tiglao. Thank you.
Joel Locsin
Media Relations Officer
Office of Sen. Panfilo Lacson
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Mr. Tiglao’s latest piece recycles the same insinuation he has been pushing for weeks: that the increase in Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s declared net worth while he was a private citizen somehow remains “unexplained.” It does not. The facts have been stated repeatedly, publicly, and with supporting tax records. What Tiglao demands is not transparency; it is a trial by innuendo conducted on his own terms.
The timeline and the numbers are not in dispute
Lacson left the Senate on 30 June 2022 with a declared net worth of approximately ₱58.8 million. He returned on 30 June 2025 with a declared net worth of approximately ₱245 million. The increase occurred entirely during the three years he was out of public office. He has said, on multiple platforms, that the growth came from legitimate real-estate and trading activities undertaken with two partners. He has also released income-tax figures showing substantial payments to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for the relevant years. Those are the core facts. Everything else in Tiglao’s column is speculation layered on top of them.
“Legitimate” is not a magic word — and neither is “unexplained”
Tiglao pretends that the only acceptable explanation is a complete public ledger of every deed, buyer, seller, and partnership agreement. That standard is not applied evenly. When he discusses other politicians’ asset growth, ordinary property appreciation and professional income are routinely accepted as sufficient. When the numbers belong to Lacson, the same categories suddenly become suspicious by definition. That is not journalism; it is selective skepticism.
Philippine real-estate brokerage commissions of 3–5 percent on large transactions are entirely normal. A former senator and long-time public figure with extensive contacts can, as a private citizen, participate in sizable deals without those deals becoming front-page news. The absence of a press release or industry gossip is not evidence of illegality. It is evidence that the transactions were private.
The Senate-building land claim is a non-starter
Tiglao floats the possibility that Lacson somehow “brokered” the 2018 acquisition of land for the new Senate building from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority. The transaction was between two government entities. Lacson’s official role at the time was as a senator handling committee work related to the project. Suggesting he extracted a private brokerage fee from a government-to-government sale is not serious analysis; it is a rhetorical flourish designed to plant doubt without evidence.
Tax figures and SALN details
Tiglao highlights apparent differences in the tax amounts Lacson has cited on different occasions. Public figures often refer to different taxable years or to different components of their payments when speaking off the cuff. The relevant point is that Lacson has pointed to actual income-tax returns filed with the BIR and has invited scrutiny of those documents. If Tiglao believes the returns are incomplete or fraudulent, the proper venue is not a newspaper column that stops at rhetorical questions. It is a formal complaint supported by evidence.
The alleged omission of a short-term independent directorship is a technical SALN issue, not proof of unexplained wealth. Directors’ fees, if any, would appear in income declarations. Treating a disclosure technicality as the smoking gun for a ₱186-million jump is another example of stretching thin material.
The double standard is the real story
Tiglao has spent considerable energy comparing Lacson’s asset growth to that of Vice President Sara Duterte. The comparison is useful only if the same standard is applied to both. A ₱33-million increase over three years is treated as potentially impeachable; a larger increase during a period of private-sector activity is treated as presumptively illegitimate. That is not a consistent principle of accountability. It is political targeting.
Lacson has repeatedly stated that the earnings were legitimate, that taxes were paid, and that the activity occurred while he held no public office and therefore could not have used official power to generate them. He has produced tax figures. He has not produced a full public dossier of every private transaction because private citizens are not required to do so. Demanding that level of disclosure only from one politician, while accepting far thinner explanations from others, reveals the selective nature of the critique.
Conclusion
An increase in net worth is not, by itself, unexplained wealth. Unexplained wealth is wealth that cannot be tied to lawful sources of income. Lacson has identified the category of activity (real-estate and trading ventures as a private citizen), has pointed to tax payments consistent with substantial earnings, and has done so under his own name. Tiglao’s response is to dismiss the explanation as insufficient because it does not satisfy his preferred level of public detail, then to invent scenarios (Senate land brokerage, casino-level luck) for which he offers no evidence.
If concrete proof of illegality exists, it should be presented to the proper authorities. Until then, columns that treat the absence of a complete public transaction list as proof of wrongdoing are not investigations. They are accusations dressed up as analysis. The public is entitled to better.