Bantag eludes Ifugao arrest
Bantag remains wanted in connection with the October 2022 killing of radio commentator Percival Mabasa, popularly known as Percy Lapid.
BAGUIO CITY — Police failed to arrest fugitive former Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Q. Bantag during an early morning operation on 1 November in Lamut, Ifugao, after failing to locate him at the target site.
Joint personnel from the Ifugao Police Provincial Office and the 1501st Regional Mobile Force Battalion 15 launched Oplan Raniag 01/2026, with the operating units departing at 5 a.m. and arriving at Clifford Olivas Poultry Farm in Sitio Alupapan, Barangay Pugol, Lamut, at 5:20 a.m.
Law enforcers tried to serve the arrest warrant at 5:30 a.m., but Bantag was not at the site. The operatives completed their pullout at 6:20 a.m.
Bantag remains wanted in connection with the October 2022 killing of radio commentator Percival Mabasa, popularly known as Percy Lapid, who was shot near his residential subdivision in Las Piñas City.
Investigators linked the former corrections chief to the killing after alleged middlemen and gunmen implicated senior prison officials in the assassination.
Bantag also faces separate murder charges in connection with the death of Cristito Villamor Palaña, a New Bilibid Prison inmate identified as the alleged middleman in the Lapid killing. Palana died inside the national penitentiary shortly after the journalist’s murder.
Authorities continue to gather intelligence to locate and arrest Bantag.