Guard dead, others hurt in Antique jail rampage

ILOILO CITY—Inmates demanding transfer to another facility went on a rampage in a jail in Antique, shot dead a prison guard and wounded several others on Thursday, according to authorities.

The 16 inmates, including two believed to be directly involved in the killing of the jail guard, surrendered by midnight Thursday after a six-hour standoff inside the jail in the town of San Jose, the Antique capital.

Chief Insp. Gilbert Gorero, San Jose police chief, identified the slain jail guard as Romar Saquibal, 40, who took a bullet in the nape. His body was found near one of the jail cells after the standoff.

No one among the rest of the 172 inmates was injured in the rampage, the police chief said in a phone interview.

Investigators of the Antique police said the rampage started past 5 p.m. when Saquibal accosted and frisked inmate Christopher Fernando, 26, after the jail guard saw objects he thought to be weapons being thrown into the jail across the facility’s eight-foot high concrete fence.

Fernando and other still unidentified inmates, however, overpowered Saquibal. Fernando was able to wrest a .45 cal. pistol from the jail guard while another inmate identified as Lloyd Francisco, 21, was brandishing a .38 cal. revolver. It wasn’t clear if it was Fernando or Francisco, who are both facing murder cases, who shot the jail guard and where Francisco’s gun came from.

Police, however, said that after Saquibal was fatally shot, Fernando and Francisco threatened to shoot the other inmates and explode a grenade if policemen and the other jail guards didn’t enter the prison. It wasn’t clear, too, where the two inmates got the grenade.

“They demanded to be transferred and asked for a getaway vehicle,” Gorero said.

The inmates, he said, were protesting overcrowding. Sitting on a 300 square meter compound, the jail has four cells with 172 inmates.

The inmates, said Gorero, also demanded the return of the former warden, Senior Insp. Precel Arevalo, who had been transferred a day before the rampage.

Negotiators were called in to end the crisis. Midway in the standoff, negotiators granted the prisoners’ demand for food, water and cigarettes. They also offered to transfer them to another prison facility.

Fernando, Fransciso and 14 other inmates later surrendered and were brought to the San Jose police station.

Gorero said it appeared that Fernando and Francisco were the ring leaders. A task force was formed to investigate the rampage.