LAST week a Muntinlupa court archived the murder case against former Bilibid Prisons Director Gerald Bantag and his deputy Ricardo Zulueta.
The case is in connection with the killing of Jun Villamor, a convict who was then serving time in Muntinlupa, and said to be the middleman who formed the team that assassinated broadcaster Percy Lapid in October last year.
Bantag and Zulueta are charged as principals by inducement, which in street parlance means that they are the masterminds behind the killing of the alleged middleman.
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What are the implications when a criminal case is “archived?”
It means that court proceedings are suspended in the meantime. This happens when the accused remains at large six months after a court issues a warrant of arrest.
An order archiving the case must also require the police to explain why the accused was not apprehended.
An archived case is revived or reinstated when it is ready for trial and further proceedings. This implies that the accused is arrested and subjected to the jurisdiction of the court.
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Do the police feel any pressure at all to bring the accused to the jurisdiction of the court?
Speaking to reporters, Department of Justice spokesperson Jose Dominic Clavano said that arresting Bantag is difficult because he has a certain network within the Philippine National Police being an alumnus of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA).
This is express acknowledgement that certain elements of the PNP are protecting their own. Are they obstructing justice by ignoring a lawful judicial command, i.e., to bring to court the persons named in a warrant of arrest?
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The archival of this case might be a snag but Bantag’s refusal to surrender gives rise to the presumption of his guilt.
The police are routinely required to explain the cause for unserved warrants of arrest. In turn they submit explanations that are regarded as substantial compliance with the requirements of the Rules of Court.
The Lapid murder and Bantag’s subsequent indictment were massive media events that made the latter among the most recognizable faces in the country. Yet the police, for all their vaunted machinery, have been unable to apprehend him and his deputy going into the anniversary of Lapid’s assassination.
We wonder how this failure to serve the warrant of arrest was explained to the Muntinlupa court.
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The DOJ has offered a P-3M reward for the arrest of Bantag and his deputy.
Coincidentally, major commands at the PNP were revamped a couple of days before the temporary shelving of the Bantag indictment was made public.
Among the casualties is Maj. Gen. Edgar Allan Okubo, commander of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), who was re-assigned as director for police community relations. This recent position is a virtual freezer in the selection of the next director general of the PNP.
Okubo, like Bantag, is an alumnus of the PNPA. He is biographed as a member of the Ibaloi ethnic community from Benguet.
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In December last year, while he was engaged in a word war with Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, Bantag attended a protest rally in Baguio and received a hero’s welcome at Ibaloi Park as he strode on horseback amid loud calls from his supporters that he be reinstated as NBP chief.
Bantag is a native of the Cordillera. Now he is nowhere to be seen. Is the PNP looking for him?/PN
