COTABATO CITY — The governor of Basilan has offered a P1-million incentive in exchange for any information leading to the capture of five prisoners who escaped from a jail in the province on Sunday with the help of two armed intruders.
Gov. Hadjiman H. Salliman told reporters on Tuesday that his office has allocated P1 million as a reward for the capture of the five escapees, who are being prosecuted separately for murder, and possession of powerful explosives.
They are still undergoing judicial proceedings for the offenses that led to their detention in the Basilan Provincial Jail.
Officials of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade and the Basilan Provincial Police Office are cooperating in locating the five escapees and the two armed men who arrived at the jail on Sunday, pretending as visitors, disarmed the jail guards on duty at gunpoint and set them free. They hurriedly left the jail premises and disappeared.
“Everything is being done to locate them, return them to the Basilan Provincial Jail,” Mr. Salliman said.
Brig. Gen. Romeo J. Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Tuesday that personnel of all municipal and city police stations in Basilan are helping the provincial jail management determine the exact location now of the five men and their two accomplices. — John Felix M. Unson
