BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) directed all district jails in Western Visayas to temporarily stop receiving non-essential items from outside intended for prisoners.
Only medicines, vitamins and supplements may be accepted, according to Atty. Jairus Anthony Dogelio, spokesperson of BJMP in Region 6.
Some other items being delivered may hide contrabands, according to the BJMP, like saws.
On Tuesday, five prisoners escaped from the Negros Occidental District Jail (NODJ). They allegedly cut with a saw their cell’s iron grills. Dogelio said an investigation already commenced.
Western Visayas has 37 district jails.
SWAB TEST
Meanwhile, one of the prisoners recaptured on Wednesday morning in Barangay Blumentritt, Murcia, Negros Occidental is set to undergo reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test prior to being returned to the NODJ.
Dogelio said Daniel Tamon has been brought to the BJMP’s isolation facility.
Once he tests negative for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), he will be brought back to prison.
Tamon and Marvin Celeste were recaptured in Barangay Blumentritt’s Hacienda Velez.
Celeste was declared dead at a hospital in Bacolod City after he was shot by police.
HEIGHTENED ALERT
With the three escapees – notorious suspected crime group leader Francisco Epogon, Danilo Celeste, and Alejandro Montoya – still on the loose, the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOCPPO) placed police stations in the entire province on heightened alert.
Police Lieutenant Abegael Donasco, spokesperson for the NOCPPO, said following Tuesday’s prison break, the police immediately started monitoring the possible destinations of the escapees.
THE ESCAPE
The Murcia police station released its initial findings. It looked into the map between the areas of Bacolod City, Bago City and Murcia – the NODJ’s location sites next to the Abuanan-Sum-ag Road.
Police said it was possible that the escapees traversed the Abuanan-Sum-ag Road, and upon reaching the crossing of the Murcia-Bago City road, they traveled northward to Bago City’s Barangay Damsite and to Murcia’s Barangay Cansilayan.
However, since the convicts may already have an idea that authorities were hunting them down, they could have also avoided traveling the major roads and instead headed northeast by crossing the Sum-ag River and into Bacolod City’s Barangay Felisa, ending up in Blumentritt where they were eventually tracked down.
To note, prior to the recapture of Tamon and Marvin Celeste, their group allegedly robbed a group of sugarcane workers in the area.
Authorities are still looking for Epogon, Danilo Celeste, and Montoya.
The BJMP set a bounty of P10,000 for anyone who can give information leading to the arrest of the escapees./PN
