Claim: Suspended Prison Chief Bantag was replaced and accused of the Lapid murder to give way for the release from prison of former Sen. Leila de Lima
Rating: FALSE
Facts: A YouTube video was downloaded on the 2nd week of November by uploader Redmart Trix TV about former Sen. Leila De Lima who is currently jailed inside Camp Crame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrSYx__VRxo
The video starts with a slo-mo clip of De Lima saying that “she will be released soon” and the news about the suspended Bureau of Corrections Dir. Gerald Bantag being implicated in the murder of famous broadcaster Percy Lapid.
The video first showed chosen remarks about De Lima’s quote, all of them saying that she deserves to be jailed.
Then Redmark Trix TV said that the suspension and issuance of an arrest warrant to Bantag for Lapid’s murder are the next processes in the release of De Lima.
The YouTube creator even made the incredible accusation that the banishment of Bantag is a plot of the Dilawans.
This is incredulously false.
In fact, De Lima was even defending recently Bantag against the accusations against him.
She said that Bantag is too young to be the “Tanda” which is the nickname of the other co-accused in the Lapid’s murder of the alleged mastermind of the killing.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/…/de-lima-not-convinced-banta…
She also called for the protection of his life; although De Lima also admitted that the suspension of Bantag is the right move for the killing inside the jail of the alleged “middleman” of Lapid’s murder.
https://politics.com.ph/…/de-lima-warns-bantags-life-in-da…/)
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/…/leila-de-lima-order-to-susp…
But the suspension of Bantag will not mean that De Lima will be released from prison.
It was not Bantag but his predecessor, Rafael Rigos, who implicated De Lima in the drug trade inside Bilibid in 2016 because he feared for his safety.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/…/fear-led-ex-bucor-chief-to-…
The allegation of Redmark Trix TV that the suspension of Bantag is a Dilawan ploy because it meant that loyal Marcos buddies like Justice Sec. Jesus Crispin Remulla and Interior Sec. Benhur Abalos, among others, are currently “Dilawan.”
Why we fact-checked this: This pesky YouTube video is not an isolated one. Others are mouthing the same allegation of a Dilawan ploy behind the Bantag incident.
The Dilawans are practically expunged by the Duterte and Marcos governments. This move is trying to veer us from the silencing of the media and also from investigating the real mastermind of the Lapid murder.
