ANGELES CITY- A Korean national facing charges of multiple murder and illegal possession of firearms escaped custody Wednesday through a toilet window when he and his five escorts dropped by a small eatery after his court hearing was postponed in Tarlac City.
Gov. Dennis Pineda ordered the suspension of five of the jail guards assigned to inmate Park Yang Yeol, 41, who was detained at the Pampanga provincial jail in the City of San Fernando.
Wang Yeol was arrested in November, 2016 by agents of the Bureau of Immigration in Paranaque City after the Interpol placed him in its wanted list for the alleged murders of his three compatriots in the Philippines in the same year.
Wang Yeol was supposed to have been deported, but this was prevented by the criminal cases filed against him in courts in Pampanga and Tarlac, amid arrest orders against him in South Korea.
Wang Yeol’s case in Korea was also related to the murders of Sim Tae So, Maeng Jung Yeon, and Park Young Pi whose bodies were found with bruises and gunshot wounds in a field in Barangay Maliwalo in Bacolor, Pampanga in 2016 before his arrest.
He is facing the same murder case in Pampanga, and illegal possession of firearms in Tarlac.
Pineda cited reports indicating five jail guards and Wang Yeol were headed back to the Pampanga jai Wednesday noon after his case in Tarlac City was postponed.
At Julie’s Kambingan in Barangay San Rafael in Tarlac City where they stopped for lunch, the suspect was allowed to proceed to the toilet but never came back.
The escorts found the toilet window broken and apparently used for the escape.
Pineda suspended the five jailers and ordered that charges of “infidelity in the custody of prisoners” be filed against them.
The guards were identified as Prison Guard 1 (PG 1) Randy Sibug, PG1 Clarito Mendoza, PG1 Danilo Gonzales, PG1 Danigen Aragon and PG1 Carlo Layag.
Pineda also said “a flash alarm was sent at different police stations for the possible apprehension of the escaped detainee.”
“At my instruction, the Pampanga police have been tracking down the whereabouts of Park,” the governor said.
Pineda has offered a cash reward of P300,000 for the capture of the Korean escapee, according to Attorney Charlie Chua, provincial administrator.
