Philippine prisons chief charged over journalist’s murder as jail system labelled a ‘criminal organisation’

Bureau of Corrections chief, Gerald Bantag, is accused of masterminding the October 3 fatal shooting of radio commentator Percival Mabasa

Three gang leaders locked up in the country’s largest prison under Bantag’s control were tapped to look for a gunman to kill Mabasa for US$9,300 contract

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Activists condemn the killing of Filipino journalist Percival Mabasa during a rally in Quezon city, Philippines on October 4. Photo: AP

Published: 5:37pm, 7 Nov 2022Updated: 7:19pm, 7 Nov 2022

Philippine authorities filed murder complaints on Monday against a top prisons official and an aide who they accused of masterminding the killing of a radio commentator in a crime they said showed how the country’s prisons system had been turned into a “criminal organisation”.

The complaints were filed against Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag, who had been suspended from his post, prisons security official Ricardo Zulueta and other key suspects in the October 3 fatal shooting of Percival Mabasa. The journalist had fiercely criticised Bantag and other officials for alleged corruption and other anomalies.

Mabasa, who used the broadcast name Percy Lapid, is among the latest media workers killed in a Southeast Asian country regarded as among the most dangerous for journalists in the world.

A joint statement read at a news conference by top justice, interior and police officials said three gang leaders locked up in the country’s largest prison under Bantag’s control were tapped to look for a gunman to kill Mabasa for a 550,000-peso (US$9,300) contract.

After the killing, however, the gunman, who was identified by police as Joel Escorial, surrendered in fear after government officials raised a reward for his capture. He then publicly identified an inmate, Jun Villamor, who he said was assigned by detained gang leaders to call him and arrange Mabasa’s killing. The gang leaders later killed Villamor inside the prison by suffocating him with a plastic bag allegedly on orders of Bantag and Zulueta, officials said.

“Bantag had a clear motive to effect the murders,” officials said in the statement.

Mabasa was shot to death for his critical exposes against the prison chief, and Villamor was killed by gang leaders in prison as a cover-up after he was publicly identified by the gunman as the inmate who arranged the killing behind bars, they said.