MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Philippine authorities on Monday filed murder charges against the top prison officer and an aide, charging them with the murder of a radio commentator in an elaborate crime they said showed the country’s prison system in a crime had been implicated “criminal organization”.
The complaints were filed against Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag, who has been suspended from his post, prison security officer Ricardo Zulueta, and other prime suspects in the fatal Oct. 3 shooting of Percival Mabasa. The journalist had heavily criticized Bantag and other officials for alleged corruption and other anomalies.
Mabasa, who used the broadcast name Percy Lapid, is among the latest media workers to be killed in a Southeast Asian country considered one of the most dangerous for journalists in the world.
A joint statement, read at a press conference by senior judicial, home affairs and police officials, said three gang leaders jailed in the country’s largest prison under Bantag’s control were tapped to search for a gunman, the Mabasa for a 550,000 peso ($9,300) contract.
After the murder, the shooter, identified by police as Joel Escorial, surrendered out of fear after government officials offered a reward for his capture. He then publicly identified an inmate, Jun Villamor, who he said was hired by jailed gang leaders to call him and arrange for Mabasa’s assassination. The gang leaders later killed Villamor in prison by suffocating him with a plastic bag, allegedly on orders from Bantag and Zulueta, officials said.
“Bantag had a clear motive for committing the killings,” officials said in the statement.
Mabasa was shot dead for his critical revelations against the prison governor, and Villamor was killed by gang leaders in a cover-up after he was publicly identified by the gunman as the inmate who arranged the killing behind bars, they said.
Bantag has denied any involvement in the murders. He and Zulueta were also charged with Villamor’s murder. No warrants have yet been issued against their arrests, officials said.
The story goes on
The investigation into the killings revealed “the unfortunate transformation of a pillar of justice — the Corrective Pillar — into a deep, large-scale and systematic criminal organization,” officials said in their statement.
“This will be the reason for many reforms in the government and strengthening of the current mechanisms to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again,” they said.
As suspicions grew about Bantag’s involvement in the two murders, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered him suspended indefinitely and replaced with a former military chief of staff, Gregorio Catapang Jr.
A recent search of the maximum-security prison complex under Bantag’s control turned up more than 7,000 cans of extra-strength beer, bladed weapons, cellphones, laptops and suspected drugs in a discovery that deepened long-held suspicions of prison anomalies involving officials and guards, Catapang said.
“There are many crimes that we need to investigate,” Justice Minister Jesus Crispin Remulla said at a news conference. He cited the beer, drugs and other contraband smuggled into prison, and the deaths of 18 jailed drug lords allegedly suffering from coronavirus infection, followed by their cremation over 75 days.
Aside from Bantag, Mabasa had also slammed former President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw a deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. Duterte ended his tumultuous six-year tenure in June.
Duterte appointed Bantag to head the Bureau of Corrections in 2019 despite pending criminal charges. Bantag was charged in a 2016 clash that killed 10 inmates while he was the warden at another detention center. A court later acquitted him.
Media watchdogs have condemned the killing of Mabasa, saying the attack underscores how deadly the Philippines remains for journalists.
According to the journalists’ union, almost 200 journalists have been killed in the country since the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. The group led a protest Tuesday night, urging the government to do more to stop the killings.
In 2009, members of a powerful political clan and their allies killed 58 people, including 32 media workers, in an execution attack in southern Maguindanao province that shocked the world.
The mass killing, coupled with a political rivalry, has highlighted the dangers journalists face in the Philippines, which is rife with unlicensed guns, private armies controlled by powerful clans and weak law enforcement, particularly in rural areas.