By Joyce Ann L. Rocamora
MANILA – Former Negros Oriental 3rd District Rep. Arnulfo Teves Jr., who was recently deported from Timor-Leste, is not receiving and will not receive any special treatment, an official of the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Saturday.
Teves is currently detained at the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) detention facility in the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) compound in Muntinlupa pending a court decision on where to detain him.
“Right now, he is under detention at an NBI prison facility, which just happened to be in BuCor kasi nga ginagawa ‘yong building ng NBI sa Taft (because the NBI building on Taft Avenue is under construction),” Justice Undersecretary Raul Vasquez said in a news forum in Quezon City.
Teves is facing multiple criminal charges, including the high-profile assassination of former Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo in 2023 and other murder cases in 2019.
Vasquez praised the cooperation between Timor-Leste and the Philippines in the eventual deportation of the former lawmaker.
The Timor-Leste government on May 28 said it decided to deport and ban Teves for 10 years as it considers his presence a “threat to national security and interests” and “poses a disruptive factor” in its bilateral relations with the Philippines.
This move came more than two months since the Philippine government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, expressed disappointment over the young nation’s earlier decision to deny the request to extradite Teves. (PNA)
