DOJ chief Guevarra directs NBI to probe killing of suspended BuCor legal chief

Department Order No. 82 signed by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra assigning the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct an investigation and case build-up on the killing of Bureau of Corrections former legal chief Atty. Frederic Anthony Santos who was gunned down on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 19, 2020.  (Photo courtesy Moira Encina, Eagle News Service)

 

(Eagle News) – The Department of Justice has asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to investigate the killing of the Bureau of Corrections former legal chief who was gunned down on Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 19, in Muntinlupa City as he was about to fetch his young daughter at school.

In Department Order No. 82 dated Feb. 19, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra directed the NBI to “conduct an investigation and case build-up on the killing of Atty. Frederic Anthony Santos,” the suspended chief of BuCor’s Legal Division.

He also ordered NBI Director Dante Gierran to submit reports on the probe directly to his office at the DOJ within 30 days, and to file the appropriate charges against those to be found responsible for the killing if there is enough evidence.

Santos was gunned down in front of a school in Barangay Poblacion as he was about to fetch his daughter at school, which is just 100 meters away from the main gate of the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP).

He was suspended in September last year by the Office of the Ombudsman, along with two other officials from BuCor, in connection with the anomalies regarding the grant of good conduct time allowance (GCTA) to prisoners.

A six-month preventive suspension without pay was handed down then on BuCor legal chief Santos, Technical Superintendent Maria Fe Marquez, and Correctional Officer III Joel Nalva, after Ombudsman Samuel Martires noted that the evidence against the three officers “appear to be strong.”