PALAYAN CITY – A ranking provincial official has sought the relief of the warden and his assistant at the provincial jail of Nueva Ecija owing to “proliferation of illegal activities, involving guards and inmates – from bringing inmates to their homes to do carpentry and hairdressing, to making another an errand boy that led to his easy escape.”
Lawyer Alejandro Abesamis, provincial administrator, said that two inmates have escaped from the jail located along Nueva Ecija-Cagayan Valley Road in Barangay Caalibangbangan, Cabanatuan City. At least five escapes were recorded under the charge of warden Jo Mario Garcia that started July 18, 2011.
Abesamis made the report to acting Gov. Joseph Ortiz after the latter ordered a probe on the escape of a certain Michael Moga, who is now facing carnapping charges, supposedly before dawn of June 14, 2013.
“The Moga escape is a clear testament how bad the jail is being managed,” Abesamis said in his four-page report.
Investigation showed, according to Abesamis, that prior to the escape, Moga “was regularly being taken out from his cell” by a certain provincial guard Jefferson Listerio “everytime the latter is on duty.’
“He would do errands for Listerio like cleaning his motorcycle or cooking his food and worst even doing the tasks as guard whenever he attends to his personal necessity,” Abesamis said citing findings of a team his office sent to the jail to investigate.
On the night of his escape, Moga was reportedly asked to man the gate of the jail as they fell asleep.
“They only realized that Moga escaped when they woke up the next morning and found the gate wide open,” Abesamis added, saying the inmate even commandeered the motorcycle of Edilberto Juan and Listerio’s service firearm. The two were among the three guards supposedly on duty that night.
The provincial administrator stressed that Moga’s escape occurred the very same day after he sent a team from the accounting office to conduct an unannounced headcount of prisoners, which was prompted by reports that two inmates escaped from the jail earlier this month.
He said he ordered the headcount upon the authority of Gov. Aurelio Umali.
Before the headcount, it was learned that assistant warden Dennis Jose reportedly tried to convince the team led by Joel John de Leon that they will provide them the jail’s record of prisoners headcount and skip the actual headcount.
After the headcount, Abesamis said, the team found two inmates facing unbailable offenses missing.
They were Artemio Salin who is being tried for rape and Jayson dela Cruz, charged of selling illegal drugs.
Informed of the findings, Jose reportedly told de Leon’s team that Salin escaped on June 2 or 3, 2013 while De la Cruz was supposedly transferred to the custody of his own parents sans court order.
Jose allegedly told de Leon that Garcia has reported to Abesamis Salin’s escape though SMS. But “both (Garcia and Jose) were silent when I categorically denied before them receiving any text message reporting the alleged Salin escape,” Abesamis said referring to a follow investigation conducted by a Disciplinary Board he chairs on June 20.
The investigation also revealed that some inmates, including a certain Marlon Galope who is facing drug pushing charges, were being brought home by a lady guard named Maribel de Guzman to her house in Sta. Rosa town, allegedly “to do tasks like carpentry and hairdressing of her children.”
“What is worst is that on March 31, 2013,” Abesamis reported, she together with at least five male and female inmates organized an excursion in Dupinga, Gabaldon for the celebration of her birthday.’ The group used a service vehicle of the provincial jail in that trip, he added.
Abesamis said that while he was directed to report on Moga incident, he “opted to cover not only the Moga escape to give an over-all picture of the present security conditions at the jail to eliminate the possible impression of imbalance” of his recommendations.
He also noted that the jail is being utilized as custodian to high risk prisoners, among them are a certain Vero who is charged of killing a trial court judge in Quezon City and Eduardo Friginal, an alleged member of the Alex Boncayao Brigade’s Sparrow Unit.
