6 hurt in Bilibid grenade blast

MANILA, Philippines - Officials of the New Bilibid Prison are again under fire after six inmates were hurt in a grenade explosion inside the NBP maximum compound in Muntinlupa City yesterday morning.

The injured were identified as Jeric Diogilo, who was hit in the nose and upper chest; Cabas Lastimoso, who was wounded in the lower leg; and Ronnie Franco who sustained contusions in the right lower arm.

Also hurt were Nilo Garin, Fernando Montemayor, and Eddie Boy Oson.

NBP chief superintendent Ramon Reyes II said investigators are eyeing personal grudge and gang war as possible motives. All victims belong to the Batang City Jail Gang.

Reyes said the attack could be premeditated but he could not explain how the grenade was brought inside the maximum security compound, supposedly the most tightly guarded among the three prison compounds in NBP.

“We believe that there are lapses here,” he said.

Reyes said the victims were jogging at around 5:55 a.m. in front of the Alternative Learning Center toward the direction of Building 11 when another inmate lobbed a fragmentation grenade at them.

The grenade hit one jogger’s back, bounced off to a concrete box used as a bench by inmates, and exploded.

A surveillance camera captured the incident, but prison officials said the footage were not clear enough to aid their investigation.

Reyes refused to identify the suspect but said they already have one inmate under custody.

Muntinlupa City chief of police Senior Superintendent Conrad Capa said they are going to conduct their own investigation.

Capa is wondering how the grenade got inside the compound why they were informed almost five hours after the explosion.

The crime site was already cleaned when the cops arrived. The lever and the safety pin recovered from the incident were handed by the NBP to the cops.

He said that based on the video footage, the man who lobbed the grenade was among the joggers but with a towel covering his face.

According to Capa, the man slowed down as he pulled the safety pin. When the victims’ were about 20 yards away, the man lobbed the grenade and casually walked away.

Reyes, on the other hand, said all privileges enjoyed by the inmates, including conjugal visits, are temporarily cancelled pending investigation.

Parallel investigation

Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III, who supervises the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), immediately directed the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct a parallel probe on the incident.

“I am sure Sec. (Leila) de Lima will ask them (NBP officials) to explain because the question is: how come there’s a grenade inside the compound? That’s the big question they should explain,” he told reporters in an ambush interview. – Edu Punay