DILG says it will find Bantag ‘soon’

MANILA – Former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director general Gerald Bantag will be arrested “pretty soon,” Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla said Tuesday.

Speaking to Palace reporters, Remulla said the government has already tracked down the former BuCor chief.

“We know where he is but we have not found him yet. But we will find him soon, pretty soon,” Remulla said.

Bantag was tagged as the mastermind in the 2022 killing of radio broadcaster Percival Mabasa, also known as Percy Lapid, and prisoner Jun Villamor.

Mabasa was gunned down near his home in Las Piñas on October 3 while Villamor was found dead at his New Bilibid Prison-Muntinlupa cell on October 18.

Bantag attended the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) preliminary investigation on the murder cases of Mabasa and Villamor in December 2022.

He asked the prosecutors to inhibit themselves from the cases filed as he questioned the supposed impartiality of DOJ Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla.

Bantag’s camp also claimed that the Office of the Ombudsman, not the DOJ, has the jurisdiction to investigate the allegations against ranking government officials like him.

He went into hiding after the National Bureau of Investigation raided his lair in Baguio in April 2024 to serve the arrest warrant.

The DOJ has been monitoring Bantag since last year, saying the former BuCor chief is always on the move. (PNA)

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