Kidapawan police director keeps post despite jailbreak

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines - The city police director has been exonerated from any culpability in last week’s escape of six detainees under his watch, but his three subordinates were not as lucky.

Senior Supt. Danny Peralta, director of the North Cotabato provincial police office, declined to identify the three policemen, pending their submission of counter-affidavits for the administrative charges filed against them.

Peralta said there was no sufficient reason to prosecute Supt. Leo Ajero for the jailbreak.

“Investigations showed that it was the three policemen on duty guarding the police detention facility in Kidapawan City who were remiss in their duties,” Peralta told reporters.

The six escapees, one of them a minor, bolted from their cell at dawn of Dec. 22 by cutting the iron grills of its window with a hacksaw.

Ajero had been reinstated as Kidapawan City police director following a brief relief after the incident.  

Two of the six escapees had been accounted for, Peralta said.

The Dec. 22 jailbreak was preceded by the daring escape from the same facility last April by four inmates, all still at large.