Do you know that two movies were made in the past about the life of police general Ping Lacson who eventually became a three-term senator even as those two movies flopped at the box office?

Lacson is seeking reelection as a senator once more and he is doing so without a flop movie to bring him luck at the polls. What he has is the endorsement and support of incumbent President BongBong Marcos. Lacson is among the 12 aspirants that the President supports through the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas party.

The line-up includes the showbiz-famous former Senate President Tito Sotto, the one-time actor in his bio-film, world-reknowned boxer and one--time senator himself, Manny Pacquiao. Sotto has always been a TV host and movie actor (with younger brother Vic Sotto and their close friend Joey de Leon).

It wasn’t until we had to write about Lacson after we were assigned to cover an Alyansa media conference along with other showbiz journos that we remembered that we watched in 2013 the movie 10,000 Hours. It was about Lacson’s escape to another country because he was tipped off that he was to be arrested sometime in January 2010 for his alleged involvement in the murder of political publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000. At the time of the discovery of the two bodies, Lacson was head of the Philippine National Police. The crime was dubbed by media as the Dacer-Corbito Double Murder Case. 

The investigation and litigation of the case went on until 2011. The Supreme Court in 2011 junked with finality the case against Lacson on the Dacer-Corbito murder.

In 2010, though, Lacson was already serving his second term as a senator. His first term was from 2001 to 2007, the second was from 2007 to 2013, the third was from 2016 to 2022. 

Lacson had to flee the Philippines because he couldn’t have senatorial immunity from arrest from a double-murder case, which is not bailable. It was a sensational because names of powerful politicians and officials at that time were implicated in the murders.

Lacson confided to the media in 2013 that 10,000 Hours was based on his fleeing the country and living in hiding abroad — but the film was largely fictional. The film’s title is equivalent in hours to Lacson’s being away from the Philippines for more than a year from 5 January 2010 to early 2011. 

He also reveals that the production team paid him an unknown sum for the film rights and let him choose the lead actor and director for the project. The senator chose Robin Padilla as lead actor and Joyce Bernal as director. 

The film’s main scriptwriter must have been Lacson’s choice, too. It’s Neil Arce, the boyfriend of actress Angel Locsin (who is in hibernation from showbiz since she married Arce in 2024 November). Lacson once mightily announced that one of his sons is close to Arce. The senator has four sons, including Panfilo Jr., who is better known as Pampi and the live-in boyfriend of former actress Iwa Moto. (Pampi was married to actress Jodie Sta. Maria and they have a now grown up son who is close to his dad and Iwa and their three children).

The movie was an entry in the 2013 Metro Manila Film Festival and it earned the least among the entries. The same is true about the first movie about Lacson shown at the 2000 MMFF: Ping Lacson: Super Cop. It top-billed Rudy Fernandez and Lorna Tolentino under the direction of the late Toto Natividad.