Sen. Panfilo Lacson?s flight from the law makes his political rival Sen. Manuel Villar, who showed up at the Senate last Monday but refused to take questions from his peers, look downright courageous. But in fact, Lacson and Villar, together with other politicians, share something fundamental in common: They treat the legal as political. In doing so, they have helped undermine the credibility of the Senate.

To be sure, and as Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera told reporters, Lacson is not (yet) a fugitive. ?Right now, he?s still a tourist.? True, but one whose government travel authority has lapsed, and who seems to have no intention of returning to the country anytime soon.

After Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan placed him on the watch list, Lacson broke a month-long silence to say Libanan?s action only confirmed what he had ?correctly suspected,? that ?harassment? by the justice department ?upon the order of Malacañang will never stop.?

?That?s exactly the reason I left the country. I am a victim of a conspiracy of whispers between Ms Arroyo and her stooge in the DoJ,? Lacson added.

Maybe. As we have written in this space more than once before, it is regrettable that the colors of political partisanship have stained the belated but welcome prosecution of the Dacer-Corbito double murder. That Lacson faces charges because of eyewitness testimony is both called for by the facts as these have emerged since the gruesome crime was committed in November 2000, and rendered suspect by the obvious hostility between the opposition senator and the Arroyo administration.

And yet: Despite the many sorry instances of the politicized administration of justice in the Arroyo era, we have not yet reached the point where refusal to accept an arrest warrant or submit to the formal legal process can be condoned. In other words, Lacson must face the music.

?This is one case that I will dispute the argument ?flight is an indication of guilt,?? Lacson said on Tuesday. ?I am not guilty but I cannot risk putting my life and security at the mercy of that evil conspiracy.?

In the first place, the statement ?flight is an indication of guilt? is not an argument; it is a legal presumption. And it is a presumption that must be disproved in a court of law, not by mere say-so. When Lacson?s flight (to Australia, as his own opposition colleagues believe) is taken into account in the legal case he faces, it will therefore be presumed as an indication of his guilt.

Secondly, Lacson may well believe that his ?life and security? will be at risk, if he stayed around for an arrest warrant to be served, but there is no showing, no evidence, for it. What he means is that he, a sitting senator, will be detained in jail. Even Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, an ally of the President?s but a candidate of the opposition, thinks the same way. ?Jails in the Philippines are not exactly home sweet home. There is real jeopardy that you might be subjected to violence by people who delight in harassing new inmates.?

Another disputable assumption. That argument was never raised when deposed president Joseph Estrada was in detention; surely a senator of the Republic can seek the mercy of the Senate, which has allowed high-profile personalities to use its detention facilities.

The real problem comes only if and when Lacson is convicted of involvement in the double murder. In that case, not even the Senate can stop his incarceration. (Even then, there is the Romeo Jalosjos example: a convicted criminal continuing to enjoy the fruits of his wealth and influence inside prison.)

Where does all this leave us? In the pits of a politicized legal process. Villar refused to appear before the Senate committee of the whole because he thought his political rivals had prejudged the ethics case against him. Unfair, he said. Lacson has left the country to evade arrest, because he thinks his political enemies have prepared a guilty verdict for him. Unfair, he says. Both, however, can afford to decline participation in the legal process, simply by painting it as politically partisan. Ordinary citizens have no choice. Talk about unfair.