Normalcy restored in sensational North Cotabato jail

KIDAPAWAN CITY-- Life inside the North Cotabato provincial capitol complex is returning to normal but security forces continue to search the vicinity for 139 inmates who escaped from the provincial jail.More than a hundred gunmen, many of them wearing camouflage gear, stormed the North Cotabato provincial jail midnight Tuesday to rescue certain high-profile inmates, causing the escape of 158 prisoners.

Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista on Thursday said classes in five public schools around the North Cotabato provincial jail in Barangay Amas, suspended since the attack, will soon resume.
Eight of the 158 inmates who bolted from their cells as gunmen engaged jail guards in a gunfight have been arrested and returned to the facility.The gunmen, armed with M16 and M14 assault rifles and shoulder-fire launchers for 40 millimeter projectiles, attacked from an open field behind the jail.Five inmates, a jail guard and a barangay official were killed in ensuing skirmishes between security forces and the gunmen who sprung several cohorts detained and being prosecuted for heinous crimes and their alleged involvement in deadly bombings.The attack was the third in about a decade. Moro guerillas twice attacked the jail early on and set free dozens of inmates, some of them members of secessionist groups.Chief Inspector Joyce Birrey, spokesperson of the North Cotabato provincial police office, said they are ready to accept the surrender of any escapee who may want to turn themselves in. They can approach barangay leaders or local officials in any municipality and request assistance to link them to us so we can facilitate their return to the provincial jail, Birrey told reporters.Soldiers and police are still searching for escapees at the boundaries of Kidapawan City and neighboring North Cotabato towns.The beleaguered provincial warden, Superintendent Peter Bongat, said he only has 21 guards securing the facility where 1,511 inmates are detained.

Bongat and Birrey separately confirmed to reporters that 139 of the 158 inmates who escaped from the jail are still at large.Evangelista, chairman of the Kidapawan City peace and order council, said he requested the military for help in running after them. I also asked the Armed Forces to help secure the city amid the ongoing hunt for the inmates who are still out there, Evangelista said.Kidapawan City is the capital of North Cotabato, which has 17 towns scattered in three congressional districts.The controversial jail is located in the immediate periphery of the capitol of North Cotabato province.

It was originally a public school that authorities converted into a detention facility without major changes to its structural details to beef up security.

The facility is within short distance of the office and quarters of Senior Superintendent Emmanuel Peralta, North Cotabato’s provincial police director.

Local folks have urged President Rodrigo Duterte to immediately relieve Peralta and Bongat from their respective posts over the jailbreak.