EDITORIAL – While they were sleeping

The jail guards were probably asleep or busy preparing for the birthday of their warden. Before 3 a.m. the other day, six men accused of ransom kidnapping walked out of the Quezon City jail, boarded a van waiting outside and rode off to freedom. The escapees reportedly used a makeshift saw to destroy the window grille of their cell. Police have launched a manhunt for the six: Edgar Alvarez, Prieto Arena, Benjamin Dy, Felicisimo Laygo, Jaime Muog and Antonio Tan. Even if some of the six are recaptured, however, how long before they escape again?

It’s bad enough that kidnappers continue to operate with impunity, thumbing their noses at the police. When the crooks are finally caught, they can’t even be kept in detention. Then again, it’s probably not surprising. Even a notorious kidnapper like Faisal Marohombsar of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang could escape from what was supposed to be a maximum-security detention cell, at the main office of an elite anti-crime task force right inside Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Of course Marohombsar eventually turned up dead, killed in a purported shootout with the police. But he was one escapee who got caught again. What about the many others who have bolted different jails across the country?

Officials of the Bureau of Jail Ma-nagement and Penology, which has jurisdiction over local detention centers, denied that the six men were virtually escorted out of their jail cell. Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. nevertheless sacked Quezon City jail warden Emilio Culang and jail officers John Wahing, Joaquin Campo and Felix Marcos.

Will relief from their posts and possible ouster from the BJMP as well as criminal and administrative charges prod jail custodians to do their job better? Not if a moneyed jailbird is offering a poorly paid jail guard a fortune in exchange for freedom. It may be too much to demand that jail guards be slapped the same prison term that would have been imposed on or is being served by an escapee. But the government must make jail guards realize that there’s a stiff price to pay for ineptness, carelessness or corruption in the custody of detainees.