Four police officers have a lot of explaining to do after 10 inmates escaped by sawing off some of the steel bars in their cell at the Mandaluyong police headquarters shortly before noon on Tuesday.
City police chief Senior Superintendent Armando Bolalin said that he had ordered the relief of Chief Inspector Numeriano Gabuya who heads the criminal investigation unit and Senior Police Officer 1 Julius Caesar Pinera, PO3 Julius Paoyo and PO2 Dante Alariao who were on duty at the time of the jailbreak.
“They may be charged criminally and administratively as soon as the investigation is over. We are conducting an investigation to determine the extent of responsibility and liability of the officers in charge,” Bolalin said in an interview.
The escapees were identified as Reynaldo Elligo, Joel Capule, Rolando Palmenco, Henry Andrade, Rommel Abarca, Valentino Gianan, Gabriel Gonzales, Mark Louie Burilla, Mark Aguja and Melgar Quinones.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Gianan, who was in jail for vagrancy, gave himself up to the police.
He said that the other inmates had goaded him into escaping with them and he gave in because he was afraid that he would be blamed by the police should he decide to stay behind.
Gianan tagged Capule and Palmenco as the ones who planned the jailbreak.
Both are accused of violating Section 5 of Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, a nonbailable offense.
“They could not post bail so they really wanted to escape,” Gianan said.
He added that the saw which was used to cut off the steel bars of their cell had been smuggled into prison by visitors of the two men.
“They have been sawing those off since Monday when nobody was looking,” he said.
Bolalin, meanwhile, stressed that the duty police officers must explain how visitors managed to slip into the police headquarters something as big as a saw and why no one heard anything although the cell was beside the criminal investigation unit office.