Guards foil drug suspect's attempt to bolt North Cotabato jail

KIDAPAWAN CITY - Vigilant security men foiled an attempt by a notorious drug trafficker to bolt from the North Cotabato provincial jail in Amas district in this city, before dawn Thursday.

Provincial warden Senior Inspector Edwin Kasan said inmate Benjie Langalen, an ethnic Maguindanaon, was caught cutting the protective steel grills covering the window of his cell using crude, improvised tools.

Langalen, being prosecuted for large-scale trafficking of Shabu, was caught when jail guards ran to check the commotion among the detainees near his cell. The commotion was apparently caused by the suspect's attempt to escape.

Kasan said jail guards immediately subdued Langalen and transferred him to a vacant cell, which is now under heavy guard.

Langalen, of Montawal town in the second district of Maguindanao, was tagged as a major supplier of Shabu to predominantly Moro barangays in several towns in the adjoining North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.