Leyte jailbreaks expose chaotic justice system
A JAIL guard and a policeman pin down three unidentified inmates of the Tacloban City jail who tried to escape amid the chaos that followed the landfall of Supertyphoon “Yolanda.” CDN FILE PHOTO
PALO, Leyte—As hundreds of his fellow prisoners rushed past him to bolt out of the provincial jail here, 86-year-old inmate Alberto Encina clutched his rosary and waited for the mad dash for freedom to end.
In prison since 2010 for molesting teenage girls, Encina, the oldest prisoner here, refused calls for him to join the jailbreak on Jan. 30.
It was the second attempt at mass escape in this jail since the monster winds of Super Typhoon Yolanda last Nov. 8 blew the roofs off the three inmate buildings in Kauswagan village here, resulting in a rare chance for hundreds of prisoners to clamber up the walls, jump and walk free.
After Yolanda (international name: Haiyan), majority of the prisoners returned, but about 30 are still at large.
“I joined them during Yolanda, but not this one,” Encina said as he enjoyed the sunshine outside Cellblock No. 2, where he is assigned, during his few minutes of temporary liberty approved by jail officials for an interview with this writer.
Just inside the jail gate, warden Merle Bertulfo checked her list of escapees still at large. Her largely outnumbered crew of 30 jail guards apprehended 147 of the escapees in five hours after the second jailbreak.
“One hundred forty-seven down, 35 more to go,” said Bertulfo, her all-male aides crowding around her.
Damaged court records
In Tacloban City, about 8 kilometers north of Palo, Executive Judge Alphinor Serrano paced back and forth between piles of wet and washed out paperwork inside his courtroom at the heavily damaged Halls of Justice on Magsaysay Boulevard.
“About 90 percent of our documents were destroyed by Yolanda,” Serrano said.
Serrano walked into his water-damaged courtroom like he was walking into a morgue. “Each one of these files represented a life,” he said.
Looking mournfully at the thousands and thousands of paper evidence and computer disks and hard drives wiped out by the typhoon’s destructive storm surges, the 57-year-old judge thought about the gargantuan task ahead of him and his team of lawyers and court employees.
“It will probably take at least five years for one case to be resolved,” Serrano said, adding that the possible typhoon-related deaths of witnesses, lawyers and other individuals involved in the local justice system further complicate matters.
Myriad problems
A block away from the Halls of Justice at the ornate provincial capitol, Leyte Gov. Leopoldo Dominico Petilla checked his watch as he waited for the arrival of rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson.
Occupying the post once held by his father, Leopoldo, mother, Remedios and brother Carlos Jericho, the 48-year-old Petilla pondered the myriad problems that fell on his lap when he assumed office last July.
In the days and weeks ahead, the fates of inmate Encina, warden Bertulfo, Judge Serrano and Governor Petilla will reach a crossroad as each tries to carve a path to revive an already slow justice system thrown into stasis and chaos after the massive typhoon that destroyed lives and properties like nothing before.
“Everything is at a standstill. No hearings. There are no court proceedings,” said a local court sheriff.
An anomaly in the male-dominated prison administration system, the 53-year-old Bertulfo was a registered nurse who rose from the ranks to become acting Leyte warden after her predecessor, Jose Repulda, retired on April 23 last year.
But part of her burden is explaining to the public how a measly budget of P45 a day for every inmate will counter charges that 588 of the mostly male and nine women prisoners under her care are going hungry and growing desperate over decrepit prison conditions made even worse by Yolanda.
Suspicious jailbreaks
There have been two jailbreaks suspiciously timed before two major typhoons (Yolanda and Tropical Storm “Basyang,” international name: Kajiki) here, raising concerns from public safety advocates that the prisoners are being released intentionally to ease overcrowding.
“That is not true! These are all products of sensational reporting. Did those Manila-based reporters come here? No!” Bertulfo fumed.
But critics lay the blame squarely on the untested Petilla who has the executive power to marshal resources under the law to repair the damage done by Yolanda to the prison.
“Petilla should have repaired the roofs immediately after the typhoon. If he did that, the second jailbreak would have been prevented,” said a lawyer and public safety advocate in Tacloban who requested anonymity.
“How proactive can you get? I was there at the prison a week after the storm to make sure that the prisoners had clean drinking water. These are all fortuitous events over which we have no control,” Petilla said.
Other priorities
Licking his wounds from his baptism of fire from Yolanda, Petilla said he was aware of the problems in Leyte’s jail, but there were other priorities like jump-starting Leyte’s economy and making sure that typhoon rehabilitation efforts were on schedule.
“We are concerned not only for those inside our prisons. We are just as concerned with our citizens outside them,” Petilla said.
The two jailbreaks also showed the failure of the local office of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to check the substandard conditions the inmates had been complaining about in a letter to local officials.
In response to the inmates’ letter to him on Jan. 8, CHR Director Paquito Nacino for Eastern Visayas sent investigators Desiree Pontejos and Ronnie Diaz.
But the two officials only talked to Bertulfo and inmate leader Renato Comora and did not interview any other prisoners, raising questions about the extent of the inquiry.
Facing limbo
Although he did not join the Jan. 30 jailbreak, Encina said he shared the concern of his fellow inmates that all their cases would be thrown in limbo with the destruction of their files at the Halls of Justice.
A check of Encina’s files (Case No.2000-12-722) at the Halls of Justice in Tacloban showed that it was still wet, with the pages sticking together.
“It’s not readable anymore,” court custodian Eileen Gaddi said.
“Our hands are tied. We cannot do anything,” said Judge Crisologo Bitas of Branch 7, who is hearing Encina’s case.
“We hardly had a hearing before the super typhoon, when our case files were intact. How much more now that our files are damaged?” Comora said.
Comora has written Justice Secretary Leila de Lima expressing fear that the destruction of court records might lead to miscarriage of justice.
Supreme Court Administrator Midas Marquez came to town last week to announce that the American Bar Association would help digitize all paper evidence and documents that could still be saved.
But that was not enough to assuage the fears of the litigants and their families as well as the thousands of detainees languishing in local prisons.
Budget cuts
As executive judge of Branch 44, Serrano has jurisdiction over court cases stretching into trial courts in 11 towns outside Tacloban City.
Faced with the challenge of trying to unclog a docket system known for institutional delays, Serrano’s woes are compounded by budget cuts and, with the recent decision of Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez to cut gasoline, travel and fuel allowance for the Halls of Justice.
In his letter to Serrano dated Jan. 20, Romualdez also bewailed the denial by the national government of his plea for additional funding from increased Internal Revenue Allotment to have a “semblance of normalcy” in city operations after Yolanda.
“We are caught in the crossfire in the political feud between President Aquino and the Romualdez family here. And it’s our people who are suffering,” said one judge here who requested anonymity.
Shot at redemption
Speaking in the darkness of his cell in the provincial jail, Encina, who resembles Mohandas Gandhi with his elf-like stature, said he would not join any more jailbreaks and just wait for the resolution of his case.
A former beauty products salesman, the widower and grandfather of five will turn 87 on March 1.
“I want my one shot at redemption before I die,” Encina said, winking.
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