Escaped provincial jail inmate re-arrested

By BONG PEDALINO (PIA Southern Leyte)
March 20, 2008

SAINT BERNARD, Southern Leyte  –  A man detained at the provincial jail for a highway robbery criminal case four years ago had escaped last March 8 and was believed hiding here being his hometown.

The leads pursued by Police authorities of this town turned out to be right when CelsoTombiga, 30, single, was caught March 15 at barangay Sug-angon, exactly eight days after he escaped from the provincial jail in Maasin City.

At the time of his renewed arrest at about 8:00 in the morning of March 15, Tombiga was with a companion identified as Ramil Aclon, 23, single, a resident of Mahaplag, Leyte.

“Subjects were armed with cal .38 revolver (paltik) loaded with two live ammunition each which were recovered from their possession and control; subjects offered no resistance when cornered by the apprehending authorities,” Police Chief Inspector Hector Flores Enage, Municipal Police Chief, reported in an after-operations report to Provincial PNP Director Supt. Nilo Donayre.

The two were immediately brought to the police station here, preparatory for the filing of illegal possession of firearms case, C/Insp Enage added.

Also joining the manhunt for the escaped prisoner were elements of the Southern Leyte Provincial Jail (SLPJ) Custodial Force and the PNP Mobile Group, it was learned.

In Maasin City, Joselito Magalllanes, the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Provincial Warden said he expected Tombiga to be back at the provincial jail next week, when all the paper works for his new offense of possession of firearms shall have been filed at the San Juan Municipal Court.

Asked how the prisoner was able to escape in broad daylight on that lazy Saturday morning, March 8, Magallanes explained that there was an ongoing seminar conducted by a Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement on that day, and so this may have been taken advantaged of.

His theory was that Tombiga managed to ride the service vehicle used by the charismatic group on their way out through the main gate unnoticed by the guards on duty, although he hastened to add that this was only a theory.

As of now, even with news of the captured escapee was already known, Magallanes said he still suspended the granting of privileges to the 81 inmates – two of them females – as a disciplinary action for not telling the guards that an escape plan was already hatched.

He also instructed the guards to really do their jobs as jail guards to avoid a repeat of the incident, Jail Warden Magallanes, who assumed as OIC only last year, told PIA by phone on Monday.