{"id":9438,"date":"2024-05-17T01:00:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=9438"},"modified":"2024-05-23T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T13:52:16","slug":"conviction-in-percy-lapid-killing-mastermind-still-at-large","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/conviction-in-percy-lapid-killing-mastermind-still-at-large\/","title":{"rendered":"Conviction in Percy Lapid killing, mastermind still at large"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A regional court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rappler.com\/philippines\/joel-escorial-self-confessed-gunman-percy-lapid-killing-jail-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sentenced<\/a> self-confessed gunman Joel Escorial to eight years and eight months or up to 16 years in prison in the case of murdered journalist Percival \u201cPercy Lapid\u201d Mabasa. Mabasa, a vocal critic of the previous government, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rappler.com\/nation\/broadcaster-percy-lapid-killed-in-las-pinas-2nd-under-marcos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">killed<\/a> in Las Pi\u00f1as in October 2022. Escorial asked for his sentence to be reduced from murder to homicide due to his confession in August 2023.<\/p>\n<p>The killing of Lapid <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/murder-of-journalist-percy-lapid-exposes-government-involvement\/\">underlined<\/a> the weaknesses of the Philippine judicial system and persistent impunity in the country. Escorial also <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/murder-of-journalist-percy-lapid-exposes-government-involvement\/\">implicated<\/a> the former head of the Bureau of Corrections, Gerald Bantag, as the mastermind of the crime. Bantag <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rappler.com\/philippines\/joel-escorial-self-confessed-gunman-percy-lapid-killing-jail-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">remains<\/a> at large despite an arrest warrant.<\/p>\n<p>Human Rights Watch (HRW) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2024\/05\/07\/progress-philippines-media-murder-cases-just-start\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">described<\/a> the investigation into the Lapid case as \u201cincomplete,\u201d as the mastermind Bantag has not yet been prosecuted. HRW also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2024\/05\/07\/progress-philippines-media-murder-cases-just-start\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">emphasized<\/a> that the Philippine government should take more measures to discard its reputation as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo \u00a9 Raffy Lerma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A regional court sentenced self-confessed gunman Joel Escorial to eight years and eight months or up to 16 years in prison in the case of murdered journalist Percival \u201cPercy Lapid\u201d Mabasa. Mabasa, a vocal critic of the previous government, was killed in Las Pi\u00f1as in October 2022. Escorial asked for his sentence to be reduced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,61,63,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-freedom-of-press","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9438"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9479,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions\/9479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}