Remulla doubts if Teves wanted to face raps: ‘He didn’t want to go home’
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla holds a press conference on October 18, 2022. (INQUIRER photo / RICHARD A. REYES)
MANILA, Philippines — For Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, there is no truth to the statement of expelled lawmaker Arnolfo Teves Jr. that he already wanted to resolve the cases against him even prior to his deportation.
Remulla made the pronouncement in response to Teves who recently claimed that he was already considering going back to the country.
The former lawmaker said he believed he would have to face his cases at one point.
READ: Teves now at NBI detention facility in New Bilibid Prison
“No. He really just did not want to go home,” said Remulla in a chance interview with reporters.
“In fact, if you analyze everything that happened, when it happened (referring to the crime), he was abroad. But if he really was innocent, he really would have come home,” he told reporters.
It was during the press conference of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that Teves said he believed he needed to face his charges in the Philippines so that things would be settled once and for all.
“At least, it will finally be done. Even when I was there [in Timor-Leste], I was thinking that even if I didn’t come home, I would still face it. This has to be finished too,” Teves had remarked.
But Remulla pointed out that if this was the case, why did Teves go to several countries first, lived in Timor-Leste for two years, before finally being deported by that country to the Philippines?
“So what gives? Isn’t flight an indication of guilt?” Remulla wondered.
The former third district representative of Negros Oriental was deported by Timor-Leste after his arrest by Timorese immigration authorities on Tuesday evening at his residence in Dili.
READ: Teves back in PH to face charges in Degamo slay
He arrived in the Philippines on Thursday evening and he was immediately brought to the NBI for booking procedures.
Teves is facing multiple counts of murder and frustrated murder under the Revised Penal Code.
He was subject of a manhunt as he is being accused of having been the mastermind in the 2023 killing of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo.
This case is also known as the Pamplona massacre./apl
