Disgruntled inmates hostage dance instructor

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines - Inmates, griping over food shortages, maltreatment, and alleged sexual advances by guards on relatives that visit them periodically, held hostage SJO3 Samuel Sunico of the North Cotabato provincial jail in Barangay Amas here for three hours and eventually set him free after officials promised to look into their grievances.

Sunico, who is a “dance therapist,” was reportedly about to start with his psycho-social dance session with inmates when they ganged up on him, tied his hands and forced him sit blindfolded on a chair at the center of a basketball court inside the jail compound.

Inspector Diosdado Inso, the provincial jail’s deputy warden, told reporters the inmates began airing their complaints when reporters of local radio stations arrived to check on the hostage crisis, which lasted for three hours.

The inmates complained of very limited food rations and ranted on how guards “harassed” their female visitors by letting them undress for inspection before allowing them to get inside the jail compound.

“We will not complain if the guards that inspect them and order them to undress inside a room are women,” one of the inmate told reporters.

Some of the inmates also complained of frequently being served with stale food by the jail management.

Certain local officials, however, were quick to downplay the incident as an “exercise,” amid confirmations by ranking police officials that it was indeed a “hostage crisis” that ended peacefully through a diplomatic intervention.

The inmates agreed to set Sunico free after a representative from the office of North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza arrived, recorded all of their demands, and assured them of the governor’s immediate action on their grievances.

Supt. Leo Ajero, Kidapawan City’s police director, said the “hostage takers” agreed to return to their cells peacefully after setting Sunico free.

“Peaceful negotiation ang nangyari,” Ajero was quoted by a stringer of an online media outfit, Dennis Arcon, as saying via text message.

Two hypertensive Moro inmates said they felt their blood pressure rise when they learned that a “hostage situation” was taking place inside the provincial jail.

“Parang ma-stroke na ako sa totoo lang,” one of them said.

The North Cotabato provincial jail was twice attacked in the past four years by dozens of Moro gunmen who rescued cohorts implicated in deadly bombings, multiple murders and drug trafficking.

More than 40 inmates escaped from their cells in the first attack, where the gunmen blasted their way through the jail’s concrete fence using B-40 anti-tank rockets, and subsequently, released the detainees one after another after subduing the jail guards on duty.

Another group of bandits also sprung several inmates, among them Datu Ali Sultan, a foreign-trained bomb-maker, in another attack two years later.