De facto or de jure?

Sometimes I admire Senator Ping Lacson for his doggedness when he attacks an issue, and also for his cleverness in eluding arrest for so many months, and surfacing only when he was cleared by the court of charges for the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver. But I think he showed some callousness and bad timing when he raised another issue against, not only former first gentleman Mike Arroyo, but also his newly departed brother, Congressman Iggy, yesterday.

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Congressman Arroyo, as we all know died only last Thursday in a hospital in London. His remains have not even been brought back to his homeland, and members of his family have not had an opportunity to see his body, but here comes Lacson, digging up the Jose Pidal case that seemed to have gotten nowhere before. I don’t mean that the issue should be discarded, if it is true that money supposed to belong to the government had been stashed away by the brothers Arroyo, but couldn’t it have waited until the poor fellow has been buried?

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I recall that, during the Senate investigation on the Jose Pidal case, probers were stymied when Congressman Arroyo parried off questions with the stock reply that he was invoking his right to privacy and would not say anything about the alleged bank accounts in the name of Jose Pidal. So, even if Lacson manages to open another investigation, he will not get anything from Rep. Arroyo because he will be silent forever.

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In the meantime, who is winning in the tug-of-war for the right to claim the wasted body of the late congressman between the two of the last women in his life? One had been with him up to the time of his death, and the other had been separated from him for some time now, but she was actually married to him, and is still his legal wife. Can