NBI ‘footdragging’ in Ramgen slay hit

Lawyers of Janelle Manahan, the girlfriend of murder victim Ramgen Bautista who survived the attack that killed her boyfriend last year, have decried the alleged footdragging of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) over the custody of suspect Ryan Pastera who surrendered to authorities on Tuesday.

Argee Guevarra, Manahan’s lead counsel, castigated the bureau for allegedly “coddling” Pastera until he yielded to NBI Deputy Director Roberto Arugay early morning Tuesday.

“The NBI should have brought him to the custody of the court. They are only authorized to enforce the warrant of arrest. Why are they withholding Pastera?” he said over the phone.

He surmised that the NBI could be preempting a legal maneuver of Pastera’s family, which the lawyer said would be seeking from a   Parañaque City court hearing the murder case.

Should the move to hand over Ryan to the NBI prosper, “it would be highly irregular considering that the NBI does not have a custodial center to begin with,” Guevarra said.

“Besides, if the Parañaque City Jail was good enough for [coaccused] Ramon Joseph Bautista, why should it not be good enough for Pastera?” he added.

This does not bode well for the NBI which, has been under fire recently following the sacking of its head, Magtanggol Gatdula, the lawyer said.

The former NBI director allegedly knew about the extortion on Noriyo Ohara, a Japanese woman who had been in the custody of unauthorized NBI agents.

Guevarra asked Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to investigate the “unusual” surrender of a suspect to the NBI, saying that some of its agents could be “attempting to pull off ‘another Ohara.’”

“Why is the NBI bending backwards to accommodate Pastera?” Guevarra said.

With Pastera’s surrender, three other murder suspects in the killing of Ramgen Bautista and the attack on Manahan remain at large—

Glaiza Visda, Norwin de la Cruz and Ramgen’s sister Maria Ramona, who fled to Turkey last year.

Pastera allegedly served as a middleman between Visda and De la Cruz and another Bautista sibling, Ma. Ragelyn or “Gail,” and her husband, Hiro Furuyama. Pastera was Furuyama’s best man at his wedding.

Visda and De la Cruz allegedly hired gunmen kill Ramgen, who was shot dead inside the family residence in Parañaque on Oct. 28, 2011.

Manahan, who was also inside the room during the attack, survived the shooting.