ZAMBOANGA CITY - The local authorities have been given 24 hours to recapture the five remaining detainees out of the 16 prisoners who escaped from detention in one of the police stations here.
Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar on Tuesday issued the order hours after the prison break at the Police Station 6 in Barangay Tetuan.
The detainees escaped at around 2:50 a.m. Tuesday after one of them, William Parajado, cut the detention cell’s padlock with a hacksaw.
The two station guards on duty tried but failed to stop the jailbreakers. There are 58 detainees at the police station’s cell but only 16 escaped.
The local police reported that 11 of the inmates, including Parajado, have already been accounted for as of noontime Tuesday.
The police said nine of them were recaptured in a manhunt while two others have surrendered. Only five prisoners remained at large.
Salazar tapped the military’s Task Force Zamboanga and the Zamboanga Coastguard Station to assist the police as manhunt operation has been launched immediately to recapture the remaining escapees.
Checkpoints have been set-up in areas leading to the residence of the escapees and policemen had been deployed at the local port and at the integrated bus terminal.
Salazar urged the public to assist authorities by way of providing timely information on the presence of any of the escapees in their community.
Following the jailbreak, Salazar ordered the local police to strengthen measures to prevent a repeat of the incident. (PNA)
