EDITORIAL - Crime command center

What punishment awaits convicts already behind bars and serving life terms if they continue to engage in criminal activities? They can no longer be arrested. They are already in prison, usually in the maximum-security facility for serious offenders. They may be perpetually deprived of parole, but this may already be part of their original sentence.

Freed of concerns about heavier punishment, and believing they have a better chance of getting away with criminal activities, several convicts have done so, running organized crime rings from within the confines of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa.

In previous years, convicts housed in the NBP were found to be running large-scale drug trafficking operations in Metro Manila and other areas. Two of the NBP inmates, Herbert Colangco and Jaybee Sebastian, claimed they were involved in drug payola allegedly funneled to Leila de Lima when she was justice secretary to raise funds for her Senate run.

Last year, Sebastian was one of at least nine NBP inmates reported to have died of COVID-19. There were suspicions that the Bureau of Corrections, which supervises the NBP, allowed the convicts to escape for a fee, but no probe was conducted. At the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, which is also under the BuCor, notorious drug dealer Yu Yuk Lai, who was allowed to spend much of her sentence in and out of a private hospital in Manila, was also reported to have succumbed to COVID. No autopsies were conducted despite doubts raised in some quarters about the deaths.

This time, the NBP has been linked to a gun-for-hire operation that targeted broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa. Self-confessed gunman Joel Escorial, who surrendered to police, pointed to an NBP inmate named “Jun Villamor” as the one who contacted him for the murder of Lapid.

On the same day that Escorial was presented to the media by the Philippine National Police, the alleged middleman died in the NBP. The PNP did not immediately find out about the death. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, whose department oversees BuCor, announced only on Thursday that he had just been informed of the death of an NBP inmate surnamed Villamor, age 42.

Yesterday, BuCor chief Gerald Bantag was placed under 90-day preventive suspension by Remulla, who said this was on orders of President Marcos himself. Bantag claimed Villamor was already dead before Escorial was presented to the media. Nevertheless, Bantag’s relief should pave the way for a thorough housecleaning in the BuCor, to stop the use of the NBP as the command center for crime operations.