Justice Secretary Leila de Lima INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — New Bilibid Prison (NBP) officials are now investigating if there is a link between two consecutive stabbings between inmates on Monday, which left one inmate injured in the first attack and another dead in the second.
(Initial reports earlier received by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima from the Bureau of Corrections chief stated that two have been killed in the stabbings and one injured.)
The trouble began at around 8:15 a.m. when Batang City Jail (BCJ) gang member Nolfe Ladiao, 39, convicted of attempted rape and homicide, was attacked by Sputnik jail gang member and homicide convict Enrico de Asis, 38, at a covered court in the maximum security compound.
According to NBP superintendent Fajardo Lansangan, Ladiao was playing volleyball with his fellow gang members, when De Asis suddenly approached and stabbed Ladio in the lower torso with an ice pick.
Ladiao was rushed to the NBP hospital. He survived the attack.
Thirty minutes later, however, another inmate, this time from the Sputnik gang, was fatally attacked near a chapel within the compound.
Murder convinct Jorge Almo, died after being stabbed in the back by a still unidentified assailant as he was on his way to the compound’s Iglesia ni Cristo chapel at around 8:45 a.m. He was dead on arrival at the NBP hospital.
Almo’s attacker was able to take off, bringing the stabbing weapon with him.
Lansangan said his office was investigating whether there was a link between the two attacks, particularly, if the stabbing of Almo was in retaliation (“resbak”) for the stabbing of Ladiao.
“The area where [Almo] was stabbed is the territory of the BCJ, the Happy-Go-Lucky and other gangs. But we haven’t determined who the suspect is, or what gang he belongs to,” Lansangan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Filipino in a phone interview.
Meanwhile, Lansangan belied the possibility that Ladiao was stabbed under any ongoing gang war. “There’s no determined motive yet, but it’s most likely personal and not related to the gangs,” Lansangan said. “[De Asis] attacked [Ladiao] in the territory of the Genuine Ilocano Gang.”
Lansangan said the two stabbing cases were currently being investigated, and De Asis being questioned. In the meantime, the dormitories have been “padlocked,” the inmates locked in their cells, “until an agreement is reached that there will be no further violence. It’s for the inmates’ sake, as well as their visitors’,” Lansangan said.
Visitations are also suspended until “everything has been secured,” Lansangan said.
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