Closing in?

Even as the walls seem to be closing in on Gerald Bantag, the question is whether he was acting on his own or at someone else’s behest.

His direct boss, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, has said Bantag is suspended “indefinitely” as Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director. And Bantag, Remulla has said, is “definitely” among some 160 persons of interest in the murder of journalist Percival Mabasa, better known as Percy Lapid.

Bantag was suspended (sacked for good is more like it) following the mysterious death of prisoner Cristito “Jun” Villamor, tagged by self-confessed triggerman Joel Escorial as the middleman who forwarded the contract from the mastermind to kill Lapid.

A second middleman, Christopher Bacoto – a detainee of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology – facilitated the payment of P550,000 for the hit, Escorial said. Authorities say Bacoto has been properly secured.

Villamor was pronounced dead of undetermined causes at the New Bilibid Prison hospital on the same day that Escorial faced the media and narrated how he killed Lapid. Villamor, who was serving time for murder and frustrated murder in the NBP, was quickly turned over to a funeral parlor and embalmed shortly, apparently before an autopsy was conducted.

The other day, Villamor’s sister surfaced and was given protection by the Department of Justice. Why? Because she saved recent text messages from her brother, informing her that an official working in the NBP had given orders to the leaders of three gangs in Bilibid to have him killed.

Let’s hope the three gang leaders have been properly secured before they also succumb to bangungot after a heavy noodle lunch at the NBP maximum security compound.

The BuCor is housed in the same sprawling reservation as the NBP in Muntinlupa. It’s unclear if Villamor was referring specifically to an NBP official or simply someone holding office within the reservation.

But if his story is true and he became a victim of enforced bangungot, the order to kill him could have come only from someone high up in the prison hierarchy.

What might have motivated that official raises more questions. Was the official acting alone or on behalf of someone else to whom much is owed – someone who took out the contract to kill Lapid?

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Reports linking inmates to contract killings are not new. In some cases, detainees themselves are the ones believed tasked to carry out the killings. Once the deed is done, they return to prison; it’s the perfect hiding place. They return because they fear retaliation against their relatives from those who allowed them to leave the prison premises.

Even if caught, what else can be done to such prisoners by way of punishment, especially those serving life terms?

Inmates can’t engage in lucrative criminal activities from behind bars without the connivance or at least the tacit approval of their custodians. Jailers can make money simply by allowing inmates to use cell phones.

The Mabasa family is initially readying administrative charges against Bantag, for negligence that allowed NBP prisoners to use cell phones and transact contract killings.

Bantag, a holdover from the Duterte administration, was reportedly among a long list of officials – including politicians, military and police – whom Lapid had criticized in his radio program.

But would Bantag, by himself, have the financial means and readiness to spend P550,000 for a contract to permanently silence a critic?

It’s hardly the first time that Bantag has been linked to questionable deaths of persons deprived of liberty. On Aug. 11, 2016 when Bantag was the warden at the Parañaque city jail, 10 inmates died when a grenade exploded as they were meeting with him.

Bantag testified that he had seen one of the inmates holding something that was about to be hurled at him. He shot the inmate and then there was the explosion. Bantag was charged with 10 counts of homicide together with two jail officers. In January 2020, the Parañaque Regional Trial Court Branch 274 cleared them for lack of evidence.

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In 2020, the BuCor reported the deaths of high-value prisoners in the NBP and at least one in the Correctional Institution for Women at the height of the COVID lockdowns. The prisoners, among them Jaybee Sebastian, Pasig shabu tiangge operator Amin Boratong and Filipino-Taiwanese Yu Yuk Lai, were believed to be raking it in from drug trafficking operations outside prison, which they controlled from behind bars.

The BuCor announced that the inmates died of COVID, and in accordance with pandemic protocols, the bodies were cremated ASAP without autopsy.

Last July, the NBI found “criminal intent” in the deaths of eight of the inmates, and filed murder charges against 22 police and medical personnel of the National Capital Region Police Office assigned in Bilibid at the time of the deaths. But no BuCor personnel was indicted.

Lapid was reportedly critical, among others, of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, his approaches in fighting insurgency and terrorism and overall human rights record. Lapid also reportedly lamented the return to power of the Marcoses.

That’s why there are about 160 persons of interest in Lapid’s murder.

But because it’s early days yet for Bongbong Marcos, and because of the record of Duterte and his minions in dealing with critical commentary, suspicion is focused more on personalities in the previous administration.

When news broke of Villamor’s death, Lapid’s brother Roy Mabasa raised suspicion of a “massive conspiracy” in the broadcaster’s murder and subsequent cover-up. Mabasa has since been receiving death threats, but authorities say they have provided security to the family.

If no more key witnesses suffer bangungot, we might yet get a full picture of what happened. And Percy Lapid (plus Jun Villamor) might yet get justice.