Government official wants Taguba dead —lawyers

Customs fixer Mark Taguba on Monday asked a Manila court to allow him to remain detained at the National Bureau of Investigation on account of a "liquidation" plot that allegedly awaits him should he be transferred to the Manila City Jail.

In a very urgent motion for reconsideration filed with the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46, Taguba's legal counsel said one government official Taguba had named in a Senate hearings is "making steps to ensure" that he would be transferred to the city jail "with the end goal of 'liquidating'" him while there.

Taguba's lawyer allegedly received a call from the accused's father, Ruben Taguba, on Sunday relaying the received threat. The motion stated that if allowed, Ruben will testify in court regarding the "threats to the life of his son."

The government official who is said to be plotting against Taguba was not named.

Apart from the NBI detention facility, the motion likewise asked the court to allow Taguba to be detained at Camp Crame, reverted to Senate custody, or any other detention center that would make his life "more secure."

Taguba was ordered transferred from an NBI detention facility to the Manila City Jail last Friday after the Manila court decided that his motion to stay at the NBI lacked merit.

The motion further stated that "there are many personalities interested to keep him (Taguba) quiet permanently" out of "fear" that he would further reveal damning information against them during the continuation of the Senate probe on the P6.4-billion shabu shipment from China.

"Incarceration at the Manila City Jail would expose Accused Taguba to grave danger," said the motion.

Taguba's lawyers claimed that while they do not wish to "underestimate the capability" of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, "it must be admitted that with the number of prisoners in the Manila City Jail, the prison guards cannot ensure the safety of each and every one of the prisoners detained there."

"It would only take a small amount of money for anyone of the hundreds of prisoners detained at the city jail to have Accused Taguba killed," the motion said.

Moreover, it said that the argument that "there is threat or reason" for Taguba's continued detention at the NBI "effectively questions the wisdom of the Senate" in ordering security for him.

His lawyers believe, according to the motion, that he is alive today because of the security provided him by the Senate from August 2017 to January 31, 2018, when he surrendered to the NBI.

Taguba is one of the accused in the drug importation case involving the P6.4-billion shabu shipment seized in May last year.

His arraignment is set for February 9. —KBK, GMA News