2 days after BBRC jailbreak: Fifth of six escapees yields out of hunger

Two days after six inmates bolted the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center, pangs of hunger while in "freedom" led the fifth escapee to surrender to a councilman of barangay Ermita yesterday afternoon, after the police recaptured four others the day before.

Twenty-six-year-old Edgardo Batanes, a resident of barangay Ermita who was jailed for drug charges, yielded to councilman Inocencio Rupinta at the barangay hall and was subsequently turned over to BBRC warden Efren Nemeño.

Batanes told S/Insp. Gil Inopia, a BBRC official, that he could no longer stand the hunger he experienced since their escape last Friday, saying that the life inside BBRC was much better because the meals are ready and free for all inmates.

Batanes admitted he was with Randy Rayala, the sixth and last escapee who is still to be recaptured, somewhere in the Pasil Fishport but the latter apparently changed his mind and hesitated to go on with their earlier agreement to surrender.

Batanes told Inopia that after their escape Friday morning, he and Rayala fled with the other escapees Cesar Saban, Emerick Abadiano, and Garsol Gabuya and reached Buot-Taup, a mountain barangay of Cebu City at about noontime.

The sixth escapee, Randy Java, was recaptured hours after the jailbreak when he was about to take a ride along Gorordo Avenue.

The three however left Batanes and Rayala behind in Buot-Taup with the instructions to stay put while they would go for a robbery to have money for their escape out of the city.

But Batanes said he and Rayala also decided to leave the unfamiliar place and return to the city. They hitched a ride on a dump truck that took them to Campo Siete in Minglanilla. With the little money they had, they later took a habal-habal to barangay Tabunok where they slept overnight.

By Saturday morning, they took a jeepney ride to Cebu City and tarried long at the so-called seawall at Pasil in barangay Ermita. Batanes said he tried convincing Rayala to surrender but the latter did not talk to him anymore.

Batanes said he left behind Rayala and scavenged for food. He later met some old friends who convinced him to yield to any official of the barangay. Finding it practical in the face of the nagging hunger he felt, Batanes eventually went to the barangay hall and surrendered to Rupinta.

At 3:30 p.m. yesterday, Rupinta took Batanes to the BBRC and turned him over to jail officials who also said the manhunt against Rayala continues so that he will be recaptured before he flees the city.

Rayala is one of the many inmates bound for transfer to the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila. - Flor Z. Perolina