EDITORIAL - Human Factor

The full impact of the escape of Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi is finally dawning on President Arroyo. Among the measures she has ordered done immediately: the construction of a maximum security detention center at Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police, to keep notorious prisoners such as Al-Ghozi safely under lock and key. But how much good will this do?

Police corruption, sabotage of the PNP chief, plain stupidity — these are the angles being explored in the investigation of Al-Ghozi’s escape. No one is asking whether the detention center of the PNP Intelligence Group was built to accommodate such a bunch of dangerous terrorists. The two-story IG detention center looks solid enough. The building is surrounded by a high concrete wall, and is supposed to be manned around the clock by cops. Since that is the detention center of an elite intelligence unit, the public presumes that the cops assigned there are intelligent enough not to be outwitted by unarmed detainees.

Equally solid are the walls of Camp Crame. The camp is home to the PNP chief and is supposed to be the most tightly secured police facility in the country. Yet how many notorious criminals, from Red Scorpion Group leader Alfredo de Leon to Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani to the latest batch led by Al-Ghozi, have escaped various detention centers inside the camp?

Al-Ghozi and all the other detainees who have escaped from PNP headquarters did not destroy locks, doors or window grilles to bolt jail. They either paid off their guards or were allowed to escape by coddlers in the police. The same culture that bred this kind of corruption and intrigue within the PNP will still be there, no matter what type of building is constructed to house detainees. As long as these factors are present, no detention center at Camp Crame can be escape-proof. It’s not the building but the human factor that allowed Al-Ghozi and those two Abu Sayyaf members to escape.

All that the construction of a new detention center can do is to present an opportunity for a kickback. With the construction project, officers who may be on their way out as a result of Al-Ghozi’s jailbreak may even be unwittingly rewarded with a fat commission.