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North Cotabato board member wants rewards put up for capture of jail escapees

John Unson - Philstar.com

January 6, 2017 | 2:29pm

North Cotabato board member wants rewards put up for capture of jail escapees

Police guard the entrance to the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City, where the jail is located.

Courtesy of Abner Francisco / Facebook

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines -- A provincial board member on Friday recommended offering rewards for the capture of 116 escaped inmates of the North Cotabato provincial jail .

At least 43 of the 158 inmates who bolted from their cells in the North Cotabato provincial jail in Kidapawan City when gunmen stormed the facility midnight Tuesday have been captured while eight were killed by pursuing soldiers and police for resisting arrest.

Board Member Socrates Piñol also urged North Cotabato’s acting governor, Shirlyn Macasarte, to immediately work out the transfer of the provincial jail far from the vicinity of the provincial capitol in Barangay Amas in Kidapawan City.

The jailbreak early Wednesday morning was the third in the same penitentiary in about a decade.

A number of inmates, among them suspects in deadly bombings in the province, were set free by gunmen who stormed the facility in two prior attacks that challenged Malacañang’s diplomatic overtures with southern Moro communities.

A jail guard and a barangay councilor also got killed in this week’s incident, also involving guerillas clad in camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles and launchers for B-40 anti-rockets and 40-mm grenade projectiles.

Beleaguered jail warden Superintendent Peter Bongat said the gunmen apparently “rescued” several cohorts being held in the jail who were being prosecuted for a series of bombings in the province.

The jail is within short distance from the office of the North Cotabato governor and the provincial police office, where there are elite Special Action Force commandos.

Piñol said he has informed Macasarte of his recommendations via a formal letter he sent to the governor’s office.

“I hope we can pool together our attention and efforts towards that goal,” Piñol said.

Piñol said for security reasons, the provincial jail should immediately be relocated to another site somewhere far from the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City.

“[Where] the landscape in the surroundings of the jail is not conducive to concealment of high-profile inmates,” he told The Star Friday.

He said there are many strategic sites in the outskirts of Kidapawan City, the capital of North Cotabato, and in nearby municipalities ideal for a provincial jail.

He said he will present his proposals to the provincial board and also convince his colleagues to help in securing rewards for the capture of inmates.

No improvements despite past attacks

The provincial jail was originally a 1970s-era school campus converted into a detention facility.

Authorities have not improved the structural design of the buildings inside the jail to beef up security even after two earlier attacks by gunmen.

Besides the three assaults on the jail in a period of about ten years, the police detention facility in Kidapawan City was also attacked more than three years ago by followers of a detainee, Commander Lastikman, whose real name is Datucan Samad.

Samad's followers tried to breach the gate of the Kidapawan City jail to set him free, but guards on duty opened fire and forced them to retreat.

The ensuing encounter left two civilians and a responding Red Cross volunteer dead. More than a dozen were also injured, including some firefighters who rushed to the scene from a nearby station.

The attackers detonated improvised explosive devices in the surroundings of the jail as they fled bringing with them no fewer than five wounded companions.

Piñol said he is optimistic Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno, who hails from South Cotabato, and President Rodrigo Duterte will help them address the security concerns besetting the provincial jail.

“We have a Local Government secretary from South Cotabato and a president who is from Davao City. They both surely know the deeper intricacies of the issue,” Piñol said.

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Joyce Birrey, spokesperson of the North Cotabato provincial police, said joint military and police teams will continue the search for the missing inmates in the outskirts of Kidapawan City and nearby towns.

As of Thursday night, 43 of the 158 inmates had been accounted for, eight of them killed by pursuing security forces while the rest were captured one after another with the help of local officials and barangay leaders in towns around Kidapawan City.

Birrey said 24 of those returned to the provincial jail were found hiding in a rice farm in an agricultural district in Kabacan town by a team of soldiers and police led by Mayor Herlo Guzman.