8 inmates escape from Quezon district jail

LUCENA CITY—At least eight inmates bolted the district jail of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Gumaca, Quezon, predawn Tuesday (July 29) but one of them was rearrested shortly before noontime, police said.

Chief Insp. Romulo Albacea, Gumaca police chief, said the prisoners, whose cases involved murder, robbery and car theft, sawed off the metal bars of one of the windows of their jail cell and escaped at 1 a.m. under cover of darkness due to power failure in the area caused by Typhoon “Glenda.”

The BJMP prison is located at the back of the Gumaca police headquarters inside Camp Natividad in Barangay (village) Rosario. An Army detachment is also based inside the camp.

Albacea said the prison houses more than 100 inmates awaiting trial.

He said more prisoners could have joined the jailbreak if not for the shouting of other inmates from another cell that alerted the guards and policemen.

Police said except for the eight prisoners who made good their escape, the alerted jail guards frustrated the attempt of the other prisoners from joining the fugitives.

Albacea said the jail guards, policemen and Army soldiers chased the eight escapees but had lost track of the fugitives because of darkness.

He said the camp has an electric generator but was not enough to provide lights to the whole compound.

Albacea said shortly before 11 a.m., fugitive Alejandro Pacuan Villa, who is facing an attempted murder charge, was rearrested by policemen in Barangay Angeles, also in Gumaca.

The BJMP jail guards and the police have formed a special unit for the manhunt for the seven other escapees identified as: Florante Mergenio Arguelles who is facing a murder charge; Freddie Ordiales Nicol, murder; Joseph Hulaton Alvarez, car theft; Zeus Repia Nierva, robbery; Joel Cabardo Senosin, frustrated murder; Anthony Garcia Revilla, murder; and Geraldel A. Cruz, robbery.