Manero under tight watch at Davao prison

DAVAO CITY – Prison guards of the Davao Penal Colony in Davao del Norte are keeping a tight watch on convicted priest-killer Norberto Manero Jr. as officials assess whether he should be granted conjugal visits.

"We are tightly watching him and he’s not getting any conjugal visits yet. He is still under observation. We have to see if he behaves, This matter should be thoroughly assessed," the prison’s director Superintendent Alfred Gozon told The STAR.

However, Gozon said Manero has been behaving inside minimum-security Dorm-A of the prison’s reception and diagnostic center where he shares the cell with 56 other inmates.

Prison authorities have been apprehensive of granting Manero conjugal visits because he reportedly bolted the Saranggani provincial jail on March 22 with the help of his wife Julie Yee.

Sarangani jail officials said Manero escaped by hiding inside the trunk of Yee’s car after a conjugal visit. He was detained at the Sarangani jail while he was being tried for the gruesome 1977 murder of brothers Ali and Mimbantas Mamalumpong.

However, Manero surrendered two weeks after his escape and told officials he only bolted jail because he was disappointed with the pace of his case. Manero was remanded on April 11 to the Davao Penal Colony, another jail from which he bolted in May 1992 while he was serving a life sentence along with seven others for the 1985 killing of Italian priest Tullio Favali.

For several months, his escape was kept from the public and he only surrendered after he allegedly wangled an assurance that his life sentence would be commuted.

His sentence was commuted by former President Fidel Ramos and was even unwittingly granted conditional pardon by former President Joseph Estrada.

Gozon revealed that Manero had again raised the matter of his pardon with parole and asked visiting Bureau of Corrections officials to restore his parole.

Bureau Director Ricardo Macala personally visited the facility on Thursday to ensure that Manero was put in the Davao prison’s maximum security section.

Manero’s pardon had already been recalled when it was learned that there was an arrest warrant issued against him for the Mamalumpong murders.

The authorities learned that the Mamalumpong double-murder case was only shelved after Manero and his girlfriend escaped military custody in 1981. He was then committed to the Sarangani jail until his escape.

When Manero was remanded to the Davao Penal Colony, Gozon had vowed that he would put an end to Manero’s days as an escape artist.

From Zamboanga City, he was brought to Davao and thrown to the facility’s maximum security section.

Processed like an ordinary inmate, he was given ordinary provisions and got back his old prisoner number to stress that he is an escaped prisoner.

But Gozon will have to work hard to fulfill his vow as prison security itself is known to be lax as shown by the March 1998 incident when eight inmates took six jail personnel hostage.

The penal colony is a 5,000-hectare facility located in the midst of a banana plantation and it has only 187 guards for its 2,327 inmates.

"(But) I don’t think we need additional forces here just because of him," Gozon had said, noting however that more security would be needed to transport Manero 300 kilometers to Sarangani on May 7.

Manero is scheduled to appear before the Sarangani regional trial court for the resumption of the trial of the Mamalumpong case.

"I don’t think there would be any chance that that May 7 hearing will be rescheduled since his case has become controversial already," Gozon said.