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The Philippines’ prime jail official, who’s accused of plotting the killing of a radio journalist, additionally ordered a big gap dug on the nation’s primary jail to seek for rumoured buried treasure, in accordance with the justice secretary.
Key factors:
- Bureau of Corrections Director Basic Gerald Bantag stated the pit was dug to construct a diver-training pool
- The justice secretary has stated the suspended corrections director advised him it was to seek out buried treasure
- Mr Bantag has been suspended amid an investigation into his involvement in the homicide of a radio commentator
Bureau of Corrections Director Basic Gerald Bantag has confronted a sequence of bizarre allegations since being suspended final month, together with the breeding of horses and snakes on the overcrowded jail complicated on the southern fringe of metropolitan Manila, and neglect ensuing within the our bodies of 176 prisoners piling up at a funeral residence.
Following Mr Bantag’s suspension, authorities found an enormous pit dug by backhoes within the jail complicated in Muntinlupa metropolis with what seemed to be a shallow tunnel on the backside.
Mr Bantag advised reporters he ordered the opening dug as a part of a plan to construct an extra-deep swimming pool to coach jail personnel in scuba diving. The employees may then be used as rescuers in occasions of flooding and storms, he stated.
However Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla stated Mr Bantag advised him just a few months in the past that the excavation was a part of a seek for a fabled treasure supposedly buried by Japanese occupation forces throughout World Warfare II.
“I advised him to cease it. It is ridiculous,” Mr Remulla advised reporters, including that the digging was a waste of presidency money and time.
“He is not there to hunt treasure, you are there to run the corrections division.”
Mr Remulla stated he did not know whether or not any treasure was discovered and would launch an inquiry into the excavation, which has been halted, to find out if any regulation had been breached.
Mr Bantag was suspended by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. final month amid an investigation into the demise of an imprisoned gangster, Jun Villamor, whom a confessed gunman recognized as the one that requested him to kill radio commentator Percival Mabasa on October 3 for 550,000 pesos ($14,400).
Three imprisoned gang leaders later advised investigators they have been ordered to kill Mr Villamor by suffocating him with a plastic bag in jail so he wouldn’t determine the mastermind of Mr Mabasa’s killing, officers stated.
A person on a bike fatally shot Mr Mabasa as he was driving to a residential village. The radio commentator had fiercely criticised Mr Bantag and former President Rodrigo Duterte, who appointed Mr Bantag, for alleged irregularities.
Legal complaints have been filed towards Mr Bantag and a jail safety official, together with Mr Mabasa’s confessed killer and the three gang leaders accused of killing Mr Villamor in jail. Mr Bantag has denied any involvement within the killings and accused the justice secretary of fabricating felony complaints towards him.
When investigators went to a funeral residence close to the jail to test on Mr Villamor’s stays, they reported discovering 176 unclaimed our bodies of inmates who had been listed as having died of varied diseases corresponding to tuberculosis, kidney failure, and coronary heart illness whereas Mr Bantag was prisons chief.
Authorities have buried 10 of the our bodies however are making ready to conduct autopsies on many others to substantiate the causes of their deaths.
AP
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