THE Department of Justice (DOJ) is willing to make “special arrangements” for former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Gerald Bantag and former deputy security officer Ricardo Zulueta particularly on their possible place of detention.
Bantag and Zulueta were tagged in the killing of veteran broadcast journalist Percy Lapid.
In an interview with reporters, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said Bantag has already sent surrendered feelers “but it looks like they’re not serious” in turning themselves in.
“But one of the topics that we discussed was the place of detention. And we’re amenable to special arrangements for DG Bantag and Mr. Zulueta if that is a problem with them,” he said.
“I think they’re trying to avoid being put into BuCor, in any BuCor facility,” he said.
Bantag and Zulueta have two standing arrest warrants, one for Lapid’s murder and the other over the death of a New Bilibid Prison (NBP) inmate, Jun Villamor, who was tagged as the middleman in the murder case.
Both arrest warrants were issued in April.
Lapid was shot dead while driving on his way home in Las Piñas on October 3, 2022.
Villamor was found dead in his cell inside the NBP on October 18, hours after Joel Escorial surrendered to the authorities and admitted serving as the gunman in Lapid’s slay.
He was allegedly killed by other persons deprived of liberty inside the NBP through suffocation using a plastic bag on the orders of Zulueta and Bantag in an attempt to cover up links to Lapid’s death.
Bantag has earlier denied involvement in the killing, saying that efforts to pin him down were due to his strict enforcement of rules that aimed to cleanse the NBP especially against illegal drugs. (SunStar Philippines)