Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 18) —The Department of Justice (DOJ) will look into the claim that the order to kill radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa, popularly known as Percy Lapid, came from someone in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP), its top official said Tuesday.
“We’ll find out sino [who it is],” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla said in a media briefing.
“Sa loob ng Bilibid, kung sino man ‘yan, dapat malaman natin. Ilalabas natin ‘yan [We’ll identify whoever this person is inside the Bilibid],” he added.
The claim came from Joel Estorial, the self-confessed gunman in the Lapid case who surrendered to police.
“Yung kumontrata po, sir, galing po sa loob po ng Bilibid. Itinawag po sa amin [The one who tapped us was from inside the Bilibid prison. They called us],” he told Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos in a separate briefing earlier in the day.
Estorial said there were six of them who shared a ₱550,000 payment for the ambush-slay, but he didn’t say who gave the instruction or where the money came from.
He named three alleged accomplices who are at-large, while the other two — whom he did not identify — were supposedly from inside the NBP.
Remulla said he will talk to Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General (DG) Gerald Bantag about the matter. BuCor is an attached agency of the DOJ.
“Immediately after this meeting, I will tell him to give me a report on this, if he has any knowledge already. Because what the gunman said and what the DG knows, we do not know if they are the same,” Remulla told reporters.
In a statement following the DOJ briefing, BuCor spokesperson Gabriel Chaclag said the bureau directed the Bilibid management to probe the allegation.
“We asked the NBP superintendent to investigate ASAP this alleged connection of the gunman with an unidentified inmate and submit report within today so we could have a forthright reply to all your queries,” Chaclag told the media.
BuCor also noted that it welcomes any investigation by other agencies that would help validate “allegations which involve our penitentiary.”
This comes after Senator Bong Revilla pushed for an inquiry into the supposed crimes in Bilibid.
“It is wrong in all sense that a prisoner can still be able to communicate with his cohorts to perform criminal acts outside, and we, in BuCor, do not tolerate such,” Chaclag said.
