BuCor bribery witness stands by story, says security footage best evidence

MANILA, Philippines—A witness who claimed she gave bribe money to a jail official for the early release of her common-law husband stood by her story, telling senators footage from security cameras will confirm her allegation.

Yolanda Camilon, wife of an inmate at the New Bilibid Prison, said Senior Insp. Maribel Bansil, of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), took the P20,000 she gave for her husband’s early release from jail through the now controversial good conduct time allowance.

Asked by Sen. Richard Gordon to identify the BuCor official who took the money, Camilon answered in Filipino: “To ma’am Mabel Bansil.”

Bansil vehemently denied the allegation, accusing Camilon of lying.

Camilon continued her testimony at the fourth hearing of the Senate justice committee, led by Gordon, on the scandal now gripping BuCor over alleged irregularities surrounding the implementation of a law that allows additional good conduct credits to cut short convicts’ jail time.

Camilon said there was a security camera near the restaurant where she and Bansil met and footage could prove that Bansil took the money.

“There’s a CCTV from the gate,” Camilo said, using the initials for closed circuit television and speaking in Filipino. “There’s CCTV going to the restaurant where we meet from time to time,” she said.

Camilon earlier alleged she gave P50,000 to BuCor officials in three installments in February 2019. She said she delivered the first payment of P10,000 to BuCor Staff Sgt. Ramoncito Roque’s house accompanied by Bansil, while two other payments consisted of P20,000 each.

Camilon claimed Bansil was supposedly close to Roque, chief of the BuCor Inmate’s Documents Processing Division, and had given assurance her husband would be released.

“I asked and she said it’s easy because they’be been doing it before,” Camilon said in Filipino, recalling what she said were Bansil’s assurance to her. “She said they’ve helped many (inmates) already,” Camilon added, still quoting Bansil.

“I never said anything like that,” Bansil said in reply to Camilon at the hearing.

Roque said he did not want to accept the envelope with cash, but was forced to do so then supposedly sought out Camilon to return the money.

The use of good conduct time allowance to set convicts free long before they had served their jail terms became controversial after it was found that rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez, former mayor of Calauan, Laguna, as among those to be released because of good conduct.

Sanchez had been sentenced to at least 200 years in prison for the rape and murder of Eileen Sarmenta and the murder of her friend Allan Gomez, both UP Los Banos students, and the murders of two political foes. His release, which would have come in his 24th year in prison, was aborted by public outrage./TSB

READ: Witness tells Senate: Freedom comes with a price tag in Bilibid