Central Visayas police on lookout for 141 jail escapees from Leyte

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

CEBU CITY, Philippines — More than a hundred prisoners from the jails in Tacloban City and Palo, Leyte, who bolted prison at the height of supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name Haiyan) last November 8 have kept police in Central Visayas on alert.

Of the 161 escapees from the two jails, only 20 have been arrested, including one each in Bohol and Cebu City, said Superintendent Paul Labra II, chief of the Central Visayas Regional Intelligence Division (RID) of Police Regional Office (PRO-7).

Labra said he has ordered all intelligence units in Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor to intensify their intelligence monitoring.

Labra has directed the police to check evacuation centers in Central Visayas because some escapees might have pretended to be evacuees.

Labra said they have been closely coordinating their manhunt effort with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), which has given them the names of the escapees.

He said that as of Thursday, they were still trying to get pictures of the escapees from the BJMP in Eastern Visayas.

The police would immediately check if the escapees have hidden at their relatives’ homes upon getting their photographs, Labra said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Miriam Dasacada Garcia, one of the inmates who escaped from the Palo municipal jail, was arrested by Jeizen Rey Adona Udtohan, a prison guard of Palo, who happened to see Garcia while they were shopping at the same store in downtown Cebu City.

Garcia faces human tracking charges.

On the same day, another Palo jail inmate, Francisco Regis, 33, a native of Palo who is facing murder charges, was arrested in Antequera, Bohol by police operatives of the Bohol town.

Labra said Garcia was brought back to the municipal jail in Palo on Wednesday while Regis would be brought back to the Palo jail within the next few days.

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