The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) has ordered a manhunt operation against former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Gerald Bantag and former BuCor Deputy Security Officer Ricardo Zulueta over the death of inmate Jun Villamor, an alleged middleman in the murder of radio broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa last year. 
 

(Former Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag / MANILA BULLETIN file photo)

Police Brig. Gen. Romeo Caramat Jr., director of PNP-CIDG, gave the directive on Thursday, April 13, following the release of an arrest warrant for murder  under Revised Penal Court Article 248 against Bantag and Zulueta.

Caramat said the warrant was issued on April 12 by Hon. Gener Gito, presiding judge of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 206, over the death of Villamor, one of the alleged middlemen in the Mabasa slay case.

“Sa bisa ng warrant of arrest na aming nakuha ay agaran kong ipinag-utos ang isang malawakang manhunt operation upang madakip ang mga nasabing mastermind sa pagpatay kina Percy Lapid at Villamor (By virtue of an arrest warrant that we obtained, I immediately ordered an extensive manhunt operation to arrest the said masterminds in the killing of Percy Lapid and Villamor),” Caramat said in a statement on Friday, April 14.

Aside from the manhunt, Caramat also directed the creation of tracker teams that will focus on the case build-up and operational research to determine the whereabouts of the accused individuals.

“Ang pagbuo ng tracker teams na ito ay may layong mapabilis at magkaroon ng mas planadong paghahanap at pagtugis sa mga akusado upang masiguradong kahit saang panig ng Pilipinas mula rito sa Metro Manila hanggang Mindanao ay ma-cover natin sa ating gagawing manhunt operation (The creation of tracker teams aims to accelerate and make orderly the search for the accused and to cover all corners of the Philippines from Metro Manila to Mindanao in our manhunt operation),” the CIDG chief said.

Villamor, who allegedly hired a gunman to kill Mabasa, died on Oct. 18, the same day when he was supposed to be presented to the media. An initial investigation from the BuCor showed that Villamor died of natural causes but forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun made a separate autopsy and reportedly concluded that he died of suffocation from a plastic bag.

On the other hand, Mabasa, a critic of Bantag who had questioned the alleged ill-gotten wealth of the former BuCor chief in some of his radio commentaries, was killed by riding-in-tandem gunmen inside a gated community in Las Pinas on Oct. 3, 2022.

Two weeks later, self-confessed gunman Joel Escorial surrendered to authorities and implicated two other suspects as his alleged cohorts in carrying out the killing of Mabasa. According to Escorial, they received an order to kill Mabasa from a certain “Orly,” who also supposedly received orders from a middleman inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP). The alleged middleman was Villamor, an NBP inmate.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said last month that preliminary investigation has established that the murder of Villamor "was intertwined with the death of Percival and that the death of the former was used to cover-up the death of the latter."

Bantag and Zulueta, however, previously denied the allegations implicating them to Villamor and Mabasa's deaths as they both maintained innocence over the killings.