SUSPENDED Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Gerald Bantag is suspended anew for 90 days, this time for violating protocols in connection with an interview of an inmate of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said Bantag approved the interview of retired Army general Jovito Palparan Jr., who is he is serving a life sentence for the 2006 abduction of two University of the Philippines students, by SMNI News Channel, the television station owned by Apollo Quiboloy. The interview was conducted on March 30 last year inside the overseer’s office of the NBP’s minimum security compound.
Remulla said the interview did not follow the BuCor operating manual on the process of approval for request for interview of an inmate, as well as procedures and guidelines in the approval of said interview.
In a department order dated January 17, Remulla said the 90-day preventive suspension without pay is effective immediately upon Bantag’s receipt of the order which was issued “to preclude the possibility of exerting undue influence or pressure on the witnesses against you or tampering of documentary evidence on file with your office pending administrative investigation for the charges of grave misconduct and neglect in the performance of duty,”
To recall, Bantag was suspended for 90 days by Remulla in October last year over his alleged involvement in the killings of veteran radio commentator Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa and NBP inmate Cristito Palana Villamor alias Jun Villamor who had been tagged as middleman in the murder by self-confessed gunman Joel Escorial.
Bantag’s lawyer Rocky Thomas Balisong said he cannot comment yet on the new administrative case and preventive suspension against his client.
But he said the Palparan incident took place during the time of former Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra.
In June last year, Guevarra said the SMNI live interview of Palparan failed to comply with BuCor rules.
Guevarra said then the rules on media access of inmates, especially high-profile detainees, which require the authorization of the DOJ chief and observance of reasonable conditions, such as no discussion of any pending case before the media, were not observed in the incident.
Under the 2000 version of the BuCor Operation Manual, a request for media interview of an inmate can be denied if the subject has a pending criminal case.
Guevarra also said then the Malolos, Bulacan regional trial court that convicted Palparan in the kidnapping of UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan did not receive any request for permission to grant a media interview.
During the SMNI interview conducted by Lorraine Badoy, former spokeswoman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), Palparan sought to discredit his conviction by a Malolos court.
Empeno and Cadapan remain missing.
The National Union of People’ s Lawyers which represented the UP students families’ in the case condemned the interview and filed a motion before the Court of Appeals to cite Palparan, Badoy and SMNI in contempt for violating the sub judice rule which prohibits discussion of the merits of the case to avoid influencing the outcome.
The appellate court has yet to resolve the NUPL petition.
