Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 8) — A Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) official said Tuesday she resigned under the leadership of then chief Gerald Bantag after she was asked to collect money from high-profile convicts Janet Napoles and Yu Yuk Lai.
After retiring from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Angelina Bautista said Bantag brought her to the BuCor in 2019. But she quit a year later due to conflicting principles. However, she returned to the bureau after Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. replaced Bantag.
“Nag-resign po ako May 15, 2020… Unang una po sir, namatay po yung anak ko. Pangalawa po, magkakaiba na po kami ng prinsipyo,” Bautista told the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights. [Translation: I resigned on May 15, 2020… First of all, sir, my child died. Second, we had different principles.] “Pinangongolekta nila ako sa correctional eh… Pinangongolekta ako kay Janet Napoles at Yu Yuk Lai.”
[Translation: They asked me to collect from the correctional…They told me to collect from Janet Napoles and Yu Yuk Lai.]
Napoles was identified as the mastermind behind the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund mess, or pork barrel scam, in the late 2000s. Meanwhile, Yu Yuk Lai was a Taiwanese drug dealer who died inside the New Bilibid Prison in 2021 due to COVID-19. Bautista recently returned to BuCor as executive head assistant of the director general and officer-in-charge of the Office of the Deputy Director for Operations.
