Cebu’s modern jail hit by another escape

CEBU CITY — A 28-year-old inmate bolted the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Barangay Kalunasan here Saturday morning, making him the second man to escape from the supposed state-of-the-art prison which opened last December.

Gov. Gwen Garcia flared up when she received the report and immediately sacked the provincial jail warden Algier Comendador.

Garcia also replaced the jail’s tower personnel with blue guards and immediately ordered an investigation.

The escapee, Hector Recaña, detained on theft charges, was among those assigned in the kitchen, a situation that partly worked in his favor.

Recaña sneaked out of the kitchen when nobody was watching, climbed over the perimeter fence and fled.

Some of the jail guards were alerted to Recaña’s escape and pursued him on foot.

Witnesses said Recaña fled toward the Guadalupe Church where he got into the baggage compartment of a waiting taxi, which quickly sped to the uptown area.

Garcia ordered lawyer Manolette Dinsay, head of the provincial committee on discipline, to look into all the circumstances surrounding the escape.

She also suspended anew the newly restored privileges of the inmates, including visitation or conjugal visits, and the "family day" during the second and fourth Sundays of the month.

Last December, another inmate bored a hole into the wall of his isolation cell and escaped. He was recaptured on Bantayan Island that same day. — Freeman News Service