3 dead in Ormoc jailbreak

ORMOC CITY – Three inmates here were killed when they, together with three others, tried to bolt the city jail yesterday morning. One of the three, who were apprehended, was wounded by jail guards.

The jail warden, Superintendent Angelo Marcos, identified the slain inmates as Juanito Belaro, Jefferson Aralar and Renante Terado, and their accomplices as Benjamin Barbosa, Ronnie Gabilino and Eddie Nodalo, who was shot in the buttocks.

Inspector Andres Laguarda, deputy jail warden, told The STAR that Nodalo and Gabilino ganged up on a jail guard inspecting a visitor’s things at the jail’s main entrance, while their four cohorts attacked the other guards and then fled toward a nearby sugarcane plantation.

Laguarda said most of the jail guards were helping serve breakfast to the inmates when the incident happened at about 6:45 a.m.

Responding policemen led by Senior Superintendent Manuel Cubillo, city police chief, cordoned off the sugarcane plantation where four of the jailbreakers were.

Laguarda said they tried to negotiate with the four but to no avail, prompting them to pepper the area with bullets. They later found Terado and Belaro dead.

JO2 Gilbert Fernandez said he nearly took hold of Aralar but he continued to run away, prompting a fellow jail guard to shoot him, killing him instantly.

Belaro and Nodalo were among 10 inmates who escaped on May 16, 2004. A jail guard, Solomon Escalaña, was killed during the jailbreak.

The two, both facing murder charges, gave themselves up to Association of Barangay Captains president Emeterio Larrazabal Jr. 11 days later.

Additional charges for murder and frustrated murder arising from the jailbreak were filed against them.