The alleged Tiktok user who threatened in his social media post to assassinate presidential candidate and former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. surrendered himself to the National Bureau of Investigation, the agency said in a statement Wednesday.
NBI OIC Director Eric Distor said that suspect Ruel “Bong” Ricafort went to the NBI-Anti Organized and Transnational Crime Division (NBI-AOTCD) Tuesday morning and surrendered through a friend and expressed his desire to voluntarily submit himself for investigation to clear his name.
In his statement to the NBI, Ricafort said that when he was informed of the video, he searched and viewed the video and found out that someone illegally used his Tiktok account, making it appear that his group plans to assassinate Marcos. Willie Casas and Rey E. Requejo
Ricafort denied all allegations and manifested his intention to file a complaint against those persons who maliciously used his name in the Tiktok video that went viral last month, the NBI said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice-Office of Cybercrime also said authorities have made an initial identification of the person who posted in social media platform Tiktok the alleged assassination plot against Marcos Jr.
DOJ-OOC head, lawyer Charito Zamora, declined to disclose the identity of the person as the NBI-Cybercrime Division and the Philippine National Police-Anti Cybercrime Group were still collecting more evidence to pin down the culprit.
“There is initial information as to who but I’m not at liberty to say because the investigation being conducted by our investigation agents is still ongoing,” Zamora said in a text message.
According to Zamora, investigators were still gathering information to support the application for a disclosure warrant in order to compel TikTok Law Enforcement Outreach to open the account of the person who posted the threat for probe.
“As to the disclosure warrant, yes we still need a warrant before Tiktok shall divulge the information that we requested them to preserve,” the OOC official said.
Zamora earlier said the DOJ-OCC had emailed the TikTok Law Enforcement Outreach and requested the data related to the subject account be preserved pending investigation by the law enforcement agents concerned.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has said the DOJ considers the post as a serious threat to Marcos Jr.’s safety.
“If a bomb joke is actionable, so is a threat of assassination, whether true or not,” Guevarra said.
The account under investigation, according to Zamora, commented a serious threat against Marcos Jr. to a TikTok video posted by another TikTok account with username @joiedevivre420.
The post read: “Nagmemeeting kami araw-araw para paghandaang ipa-assassinate naming si BBM. Humanda kayo. (We are meeting every day to plan for BBM’s assassination. Get ready).”
The camp of Marcos has expressed concern about the alleged assassination plot but assured that this would not affect his campaign for the presidency.