MANILA, Philippines — A convicted leader of a robbery gang shot a music video and recorded an album while inside the New Bilibid Prison, where authorities found a music bar in a raid on Monday.
Herbert "Ampang" Colangco's music video features him singing "Pa'no 'Yon" while a band plays behind him. It was posted on his YouTube channel in May this year.
The music studio where that video was apparently recorded has a stage, a flat screen television and musical instruments and among the "kubols" found by state investigators and policemen in the drug raid led by Justice Justice Secretary Leila de Lima in the prison compound.
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Also seized from Colangco's "kubol" were luxury watches inside storage vaults.
The song is the carrier single of Colangco's album "Kinabukasan" distributed by Ivory, which turned platinum earlier this year for allegedly selling 15,000 copies. He was sentenced in 2009 as a leader of bank robbery syndicates responsible for heists in Pampanga in 2003 and Quezon City and Parañaque in 2005.
In May, the same month the video was shot, Colangco was rushed to the Asian Hospital and Medical Center in Alabang supposedly due to urinary tract infection.
The trip out of jail and hospitalization in a private medical facility eventually forced the relief of Bilibid Chief Supt. Fajardo Langsangan and 12 jail guards last June. De Lima also ordered an investigation on the so-called "Very Important Prisoners" in the national penitentiary.
Facebook page "Bilibid Atin Ito" in June posted photos of Colangco and claimed he hosted a birthday bash featuring female guests relations officers and cameramen.
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