5 inmates bolt Maguindanao jail, 3 captured

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Five inmates bolted before dawn Wednesday from their cell at the Maguindanao provincial jail here, three of them nabbed later with the help of the city police.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, whose office exercises ministerial control over the provincial jail, ordered the mayors’ league in the province to help locate the two escapees, Fahad Sangki and Faisal Macarimbang.

The jail warden, Macapagal Blao, said Sangki, Macarimbang and their companions, Orak Makalay, Hakino Mento and Tampakan Antilino, escaped from their cell by cutting its window grills with a hacksaw blades apparently smuggled in by visiting relatives.

Blao said the group pulled off their escape amid heavy downpour in the city.

“Three of them were captured with the help of the police,” Blao said.

He said the five inmates have pending drug trafficking and rape cases in local courts.

Makalay, Mento and Antilino were intercepted by policemen trying to get through a checkpoint at Esteros District in Cotabato City.

Blao said he had reported the jailbreak to Mangudadatu, who had also asked Army intelligence units in Maguindanao to help the police locate the whereabouts of Sangki and Macarimbang.

The provincial government had earlier applied for a loan at a government bank to fund the construction of a bigger, more secured penitentiary somewhere in the first district of Maguindanao.