Escape plan of 56 inmates

GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- In was an auspicious time. The spate of bombings, blamed on Moro guerrillas, has kept the police on their toes against more attacks.

But bad luck hounded the city's jail inmates. Before at least 56 of them could pull off an escape, a colleague blew the whistle, and their plan went pfft.

The jail, located at the heart of the city, houses more than 400 inmates.

Superintendent Nestor Velasquez, the city's jail warden, said they got the tip at about 12:30 p.m. yesterday, and soon they learned that the would-be escapees had bored a big hole in the wall using nails and other hard objects.

What the inmates were unaware of, Velasquez said, was that their planned escape route leads to the detachment of the Army's Task Force Tugis.

With a police station also just a stone's throw away, Velasquez said the inmates could have roused government troops who are at present on "triple red alert."

"We actually saved them because if they ever tried to escape, they would end up at the barracks of the Task Force Tugis," he said.

Velasquez said necessary measures are in place to avert any jailbreak, and that appropriate sanctions have been imposed on the suspected leaders of the botched escape attempt.