MANILA, Philippines (2nd UPDATE) - After more than a year in hiding, Sen. Panfilo Lacson finally arrived Saturday morning in the country after the Court of Appeals ruled that its decision lifting the warrant for his arrest is final.

Lacson arrived on board Cathay Pacific flight CX 921 at the Mactan International Airport from Hong Kong, according to a report by radio dzMM’s David Oro and cofirmed by Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz, spokesperson of the Philippine National Police.

As of posting, it is not clear if he had been in Hong Kong all along or just took a connecting flight there from another country. 

“Our policemen in the Police Regional Office VII in Cebu City has monitored that Sen. Panfilo Lacson indeed arrived on board a Cathay Pacific flight at 11:42 a.m.,” Cruz said.

Cruz said Lacson was met at the airport by a certain Almeda of the Bureau of Immigration. “He (Lacson) is still under the custody of the immigration official and I believe they have some procedures to undertake in the premises of Mactan airport.”

“If and when the procedure [at the immigration] is finished, the senator is free to go wherever he pleases. There is no legal impediment, so to speak, to restrict his movement. We are just monitoring his movements so that if and when the need arises, we can implement any order and appropriate action," he said.

Cruz added that the senator did not request or make arrangements for security detail. "So I guess we will just have to wait and see,” he said.

Lacson is reportedly flying to Manila in the evening.

• Click here to view a TIMELINE of how the Dacer-Corbito murder case that tagged Lacson unfolded

• Click this to read PART 1 and PART 2 of a special report on the Dacer-Corbito case.

• Click this to watch a lookback into the murder case

• Click here to view a PROFILE of Panfilo "Ping" Morena Lacson

Dacer-Corbito case

Lacson has been on the run from authorities since January 2010, a month before the Manila Regional Trial Court issued an arrest warrant in connection with the November 2000 murder of publicist Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.

On Monday, the Court of Appeals ruled that its decision lifting the warrant for his arrest is final.

The senator has repeatedly insisted on his innocence and blamed political persecution by the former Arroyo government as a reason for his hiding.

Several sources claimed that the senator did not leave the country and was just hiding in the provinces since he disappeared.

Last October, Lacson’s colleagues in the Senate decided to close the fugitive senator's office since he had yet to report for work.

After the CA order, the National Bureau of Investigation said Lacson has been removed from the Red Notice List of Interpol.

Last Thursday, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he received feelers that Lacson would soon surface after one of his staff asked him to re-open Lacson's office in the Senate.