Police re-arrest one of 4 escaped Pateros prisoners

Operatives of the Pateros police have re-arrested one of the four prisoners who escaped from the municipal police station at the height of a heavy downpour shortly before dawn on Sunday.

Senior Superintendent Daniel Macatlang, Pateros police chief, said a team of police officers picked up Erwin Constantino, 24, at the house of his girlfriend in Taguig City Monday morning.

“Once we learned about his relationship with the woman, our personnel kept an eye on her,” Macatlang told the Inquirer over the phone.

According to the police official, Constantino and the three other prisoners immediately left Metro Manila after their escape by getting on a bus in Cubao, Quezon City.

The four then went to a nearby province where they separated.

Macatlang did not identify the province the escapees went to for fear of bungling follow–up operations being conducted by his men.

“When they arrived at the province, they [contacted] their respective relatives, gathered their things and parted [ways],” he said. “Constantino chose to go back to Manila and be with his girlfriend in Taguig.”

Two police tracker teams are still looking for Constantino’s companions—Rowel Labios, 27; Antonio Reyes, 35; and Teotemo Laderas, 39.

Macatlang said he was confident the other prisoners would be caught by his men soon.

Asked how the jailbreak occurred, the police chief stated that their investigation showed that the four men had used a metal saw to cut off some of the bars in the cell.

He added that the prisoners probably took turns sawing the bars and used the heavy downpour to muffle the sounds they were making.

Macatlang said that one of the escapees had apparently asked a child who had visited him to buy the saw for him. The child may have brought the saw to the police station as early as Wednesday, he added.

“It took them some time to cut through the grills because they could not have done it in [one] night. The bars were thick,” he said.

The jailbreak was discovered on Sunday morning after the duty officer checked on the detainees.