Druglord and wanted Moro gang leader connived in jail attack

NORTH COTABATO -- A detained drug lord and a notorious Moro commander connived in plotting the attack last week on the North Cotabato District Jail in Kidapawan City, officials announced on Tuesday.The incident led to the escape of 158 detainees, more than 50 of them eventually captured while ten others were shot dead by pursuing policemen and soldiers for resisting arrest.Shirlyn Macasarte-Villanueva, acting governor of North Cotabato, told the www,ndbcnews,com.ph Tuesday the detainee the group of Commander Derby rescued from the facility was Melvin Casangyao, a known leader of a moneyed drug syndicate in the province.Commander Derby, whose real name is Ismael Nasser, was also detained in the same facility in 2015 for various criminal offenses, including drug trafficking, bombings, armed robberies and multiple murders, but escaped in 2016 and has since remained at large.Casangyao, whom Commander Derby and his men sprung from detention, is known as Hapon to contacts he supplied with methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) and to other inmates in the jail.Commander Derby and some 20 followers assaulted the jail midnight of January 3 from an open field behind the facility, located in the vicinity of the provincial capitol in Barangay Amas in Kidapawan City.They killed a jail guard and took control of the wooden makeshift watchtowers in the jail compound while other cohorts helped Casangyao escaped. He was heard asking his men if they already have `Hapon’ in tow. When they answered affirmatively, he ordered them to leave ahead immediately, Macasarte-Villanueva said.Talks have been spreading in the province since Monday night purporting that Casangyao, a Visayan, promised Commander Derby, an ethnic Maguindanaon, a P1 million fee for his rescue.Macasarte-Villanueva said their findings on the incident were premised on statements of witnesses to the jail attack, among them escapees who were arrested and returned to the facility.Macasarte-Villanueva led the special action committee of the inter-agency provincial peace and order council that investigated on the incident.The committee has recommended the allocation by the provincial government of a P1 million reward each for the arrest of Casangyao and Commander Derby.She said the committee also asked for a P10,000 reward for each of the more than 90 escapees the police and military are still trying to locate.The rewards are to be drawn from the peace and security funds of the provincial government. We are hoping the central office of the Department of Interior and Local Government can augment the amounts intended for the rewards, Macasarte-Villanueva said.Sacdalan and Antao, also both members of the committee, separately said there is a need to construct two district jails each in North Cotabato’s Midsayap and Kabacan towns. There are Regional Trial Courts in Midsayap and in Kabacan, but there are no jails there. Suspects in crimes are detained in Kidapawan City and are transported to these courts when summoned for hearings, a very risky and cumbersome process, Sacdalan said.