(UPDATE 5) Folks want ouster of security officials over jail assault

KIDAPAWAN CITY – Local folks want the North Cotabato police director and the warden of the provincial jail relieved from their post following the assault on the facility that led to the escape of 158 detainees.The office of the provincial police director, Senior Supt. Emmanuel Peralta, is not too far away from the jail that gunmen raided on midnight Tuesday to rescue cohorts being prosecuted for various crimes and bombings in the province.The gunmen, some of them overheard speaking to each other in ethnic Maguindanaon dialect, first opened two adjoining cells where guerilla bomb-makers were detained and set free more detainees as a diversion.

The jail is located inside the supposedly guarded compound of the provincial capitol in Barangay Amas in the outskirts of Kidapawan City.Five inmates --- Joey Aranas, Allan Tolentino, Edifel Liscano, Rapacon Ambolodto and Adonis Cedeño --- were killed in the ensuing crossfire between jail guards and the Moro gunmen, mostly clad in military camouflage uniforms and armed with M-16 and M-14 assault rifles.A guard, Jail Officer 1 Excel Rey Vicedo, also got killed as he traded shots with the gunmen who attacked from an open field at the rear of the jail.
An inmate initially identified only as Haraw, who was hit by stray bullets, was rushed to a local hospital for medication.

Residents in nearby Barangay Patadon, also in Kidapawan City, found a community leader, Satar Manalundong, dead along one of the escape routes of the retreating armed men.He sustained gunshot wounds in different parts of his body.The cadaver of Manalundong, an incumbent barangay councilor in Patadon, was immediately retrieved from the scene by relatives, to be buried immediately in keeping with Islamic tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours from the time of death.The beleaguered provincial jail warden, Superintendent Peter Bongat, said the gunmen obviously targeted two cells where high-profile crime suspects were detained.

They also released other inmates locked down in shelters nearby, he added.Peace activists and local residents urged President Rodrigo Duterte to order the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology to relieve Peralta and Bongat, respectively, from their posts.Local officials told reporters they have promptly relayed to authorities the insinuations by constituents about a plot by Moro guerillas to spring from the provincial jail a number of cohorts being prosecuted for heinous offenses.The sources, among them elected officials in towns near the 220,000-hectare Liguasan Delta, a known lair of secessionist factions and criminal gangs, said the raid could have been prevented had authorities acted on their tips.Sources from the provincial police said three inmates, Jason Angkonan, Winnie Coremo, and Faisal Tiboron, had been captured and returned to the provincial jail.

Another inmate was arrested by responding community volunteer watchmen led by Alex Austria, chairman of Barangay Amas.He was caught wandering near the provincial capitol, as if disoriented and scared by the automatic bursts of gunfire and explosions in the scene.Bongat said they received reports purporting that a former member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Commander Derby, and his men were behind the attack. Commander Derby reportedly started as an MILF member but was booted out three years ago due to infractions of the group’s revolutionary policies.MILF sources said he joined the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in early 2015 and has since been operating in North Cotabato using the black flag of the Independent State of Iraq and Syria as his group’s revolutionary banner.