Isabela jail guard tagged by NBP escapee under probe

ILAGAN CITY, Philippines – A jail guard identified by a captured New Bilibid Prison (NBP) escapee to have allowed him to escape from the Isabela provincial jail to kill a lawyer in Nueva Vizcaya two years ago is under investigation. 

Rommel Laciste, who bolted the NBP last Aug. 15, had claimed in his confession after his recapture in Isabela that he was set free by Judy Celestino to kill human rights lawyer Ernesto Salunat on June 22, 2010. 

Laciste, 30, said he was hired by a former judge, who was not identified, to kill Salunat for P100,000. 

Provincial jail warden Lito Marquez said Celestino vehemently denied Laciste’s claims but stressed the need for an investigation to verify the escapee’s allegations.

Salunat, a prominent lawyer in Nueva Vizcaya, was shot four times in front of the municipal trial court in Solano, Nueva Vizcaya as he was about to ride his BMW car at around 9 a.m. 

A relative of Laciste told The STAR that Laciste’s escape in 2008 was unknown to the public until his supposed “capture” in the house of an uncle in Barangay Tagaran in Cauayan City in 2010.

Senior Superintendent Valfrie Tabian, Nueva Vizcaya police director, said they would request that Laciste be returned to the province so he could be charged for the killing of Salunat. 

Laciste was turned over to the Bureau of Corrections after his recapture last Aug. 26. However, the Isabela police took him to the Police Regional Office in Tuguegarao City to verify his claims of escaping with Rolito Go and four Chinese nationals.

Laciste had since retracted the “Rolito Go escape” story, saying that before his escape from the NBP, he was visited by an alleged relative of an Isabela politician for a ”similar job” against another politician.

Laciste was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2006 murder of Concepcion Lumanglas, a probation officer.