Slain broadcaster’s kin: ‘Gunman’ needs vetting

CONFESSED ASSASSIN } Joel Escorial, the confessed killer of broadcaster-vlogger Percival Mabasa, speaks to journalists on Tuesday as he sits between Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos and National Capital Region Police Office chief Brig. Gen Jonnel Estomo. (Photo by NIÑO JESUS ORBETA / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — The family of slain radio broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa on Tuesday expressed “reservation” that the confessed assassin was the real killer and lawmakers said the police should ensure a tight case against those responsible for the killing.

Roy Mabasa, the victim’s younger brother and a fellow journalist, was thankful to authorities for getting the suspect, Joel Escorial, to surrender but said his family would ask the Philippine National Police to allow them to meet the alleged gunman and to stage a reenactment of the Oct. 3 fatal ambush to “test the integrity of his story.”

“This is not because I am doubtful of the results of the investigation but this is just a reservation that he really is the one we saw on the closed-circuit television footage (of the crime scene),” he said in a phone interview.

He said some of his friends and colleagues believe Escorial’s “profile didn’t seem to match” the suspect who was caught by the CCTV cameras.

He said the request “is also for the public good.”

The 63-year-old Mabasa, a tough-talking critic of former President Rodrigo Duterte and the policies and officials of the Marcos administration, was shot twice to the head while driving to his studio in Las Piñas City to broadcast his “Lapid Fire” program on dwBL radio station which is livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.

Escorial surrendered to the police on Monday. He said he feared for his life and asked for forgiveness from his victim’s family.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos had announced a P6.5-million reward for the shooter. He had repeatedly warned the gunman to surrender or face possible elimination by those behind the assassination.

When Escorial was presented by Abalos to the media at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame on Tuesday, the confessed gunman’s face was half-covered by a mask and he was wearing a bulletproof vest and Kevlar helmet.

“The public may be asking, did he really surrender or he’s just a fall guy? No, it’s really him,” Abalos said.

He said investigators were confident that Escorial was the gunman because the slugs recovered from the crime scene matched those from the .45-caliber pistol he had turned over to the police and the red jacket he was seen wearing when he shot the broadcaster was recovered, although it had already been torn up.

“I am afraid for my life and I am being bothered by my conscience for what I did to Percy Lapid,” Escorial said.

“I hope that they forgive me,” he said, teary-eyed. “I did not want to do it. I was forced to do it because of poverty. I had no job and I needed the money.”

Escorial, 39, is a native of Javier, a fourth-class municipality in Leyte province, who had settled in Quezon City.

According to Escorial, he and five others were involved in the killing. He named three of them—brothers Edmon, 30, and Israel Dimaculangan, 35, who were residents of Las Piñas; and a certain “Orly” or “Orlando” from Batangas province.

The three are now the subjects of an “intensive follow-up operation” by a special police task group, according to Police Brig. Gen. Jonnel Estomo, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office.

Escorial said the person who “put out the contract” to kill Mabasa was an inmate at New Bilibid Prison (NBP) who served as the middle man for the unknown mastermind.

Police said the fifth accomplice was still unidentified.

‘Straight out of a film’

Mabasa’s brother said Escorial’s confession, if true, was “scary because this story is like straight out of a film” and those involved could be killed “and the truth will die with them.”

“I do not want my brother to be simply part of the statistics of our dismal record of impunity in the country,” he said.

Roy now stands as caretaker to his brother’s wife and six children. “Our number one concern is safety for as long as the suspects are still at large,” he said.

Threats continue

He admitted that they continue to face threats. “I try not to mind them as I am already standing as the padre de pamilya to my brother’s family,” he said.

“If I am gone, nobody else can take up the cudgels for him. If Ka Percy believed it was his duty to stand up for the truth, then it is my duty to stand by the case and ensure we uncover the facts in this case,” he said.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said they hoped the Escorial’s surrender would lead to the prosecution of the mastermind.

“Accountability in this case will help chip away at the culture of impunity around journalist killings that media, civil society and government agencies have been working to change,” it said in a statement.

Escorial said he and the five others were paid P550,000 for the hit. He received P140,000 in his bank account after the killing.

He said there were two groups assigned to assassinate Mabasa—he and Orly, who drove the getaway motorcycle, and the Dimaculangan brothers on another motorbike.

The deal was the group nearest to Mabasa must shoot him.

“It just so happened that Percy was nearer to us,” he said.

Escorial said Orly had warned him that if he did not kill Mabasa “I will be the one who will turn up dead, so I just shot Percy.”

Police Brig. Gen. Kirby John Kraft, the Southern Police District chief, told the Inquirer that Escorial disclosed the name of the NBP prisoner and the PNP had coordinated with the Bureau of Corrections and the Department of Justice for “access to this inmate.”

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on Tuesday said he would ask Bureau of Corrections Director General Gerald Bantag to look into Escorial’s claim.

“What the gunman said and what DG knows we do not know if they are the same. We cannot presume that,” he said. “We have to know whoever is behind it, we will expose that.”

Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. on Tuesday filed a resolution calling on the Senate to “look into the veracity” of Escorial’s claims.

“These claims, along with other past incidents, are glaring proof of one of the weaknesses of the Philippine judicial system—its flawed correctional system,” he said.

‘Find the mastermind’

He stressed the need to determine whether NBP officials had a hand in the killing.

“It’s really absurd that government resources are being used to, in effect, protect these masterminds who are housed in a government facility,” Revilla said in his resolution. “This must stop.”

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said the PNP should not prematurely declare the assassination as “case closed” since the mastermind had not been arrested.

“This must be formally, thoroughly and competently investigated by our country’s best criminal investigators,” Pimentel told reporters. “We need to find the mastermind,” he said.

Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera urged the police to make sure that they were holding the real gunman and to build a solid case against Mabasa’s alleged killers based on strong testimony and forensic evidence.

“The burden of proving the case is on the PNP and the prosecutors who will eventually handle the case, so they better get their facts right and have the gunman who actually shot the victim,” Herrera said.

—WITH REPORTS FROM MARLON RAMOS AND JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE

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