Dash to freedom from Leyte jail ends in Mandaue

A former boxer and one of the detainees who seized the opportunity to bust out of the Tacloban City Jail after supertyphoon Yolanda hit the country was arrested in a boarding house in barangay Tipolo, Mandaue City, yesterday morning.

Patrocinio Raya Jr., 35, arrived in Cebu bringing clothes and P6,000 cash on board a C-130 from Tacloban City.

He was looking for his three friends, Malcom Tuñacao, Seigfred Dignos and Brix Flores, to ask for help in rebuilding his home.

Raya said he did not conceal his identity and even told his landlady that he is one of the 70 prisoners of the Tacloban City Jail who were allowed to leave the facility on Nov. 9, a day after the typhoon.

Three students helped him find a boarding house when he arrived last Wednesday.

“I did not hide my identity because I am not here in Cebu to create trouble,” he said.

Raya apologized to the Cebuanos for any disturbance he may have caused.

He lost his two children, Che-che, 8, and Ronron, 11, as well as his older brother, Rusdam, and father, Patrocinio Raya Sr., 51, during the typhoon.

Raya has been incarcerated in the Tacloban City Jail since 2002 for allegedly selling illegal drugs but his case has yet to be heard in court.

Storm surge

Raya recounts that when Yolanda struck, several prisoners died as the storm surge inundated the jail, destroying the jail’s entrance.

They immediately evacuated to the jail’s gymnasium. After a while, with no help forthcoming, they were allowed to leave the jail.

He admitted he took money from the dead bodies he saw but denied any involvement in the looting incidents.

Chief Insp. Jimmy Aguisanda, chief of the Centro Police Station, said the owner of the boarding house informed them of Raya’s presence after he admitted that he was a fugitive.

Out of 161 escapees from jails in Tacloban City and Palo town, 20 have been recaptured, according to Supt. Paul Labra II, chief of the intelligence division of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas.

Labra also said he has ordered all intelligence units to intensify their information gathering and check evacuations center in Central Visayas as these inmates might have joined the evacuees.

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 trafficking charges.

On the same day, another Palo jail inmate, Francisco Regis, 33, a native of Palo charged with murder, 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 will be returned to the Palo jail within the next few days.