EDITORIAL - Escape from Camp Crame

Will there ever be good news from the Philippine National Police? Yesterday, as the PNP was preoccupied with a clash on Dinagat Island in Surigao del Norte that left 23 people dead, a leader of the Pentagon kidnapping gang and two of his henchmen escaped from detention. The apprehension of Faisal Marohombsar by the police in Manila last Feb. 16 was controversial enough. There were debates on whether he turned himself in or was captured. His offer to turn state witness was opposed by those who considered him one of the most guilty among the band of thugs responsible for several high-profile kidnappings in Mindanao.

The escape of Marohombsar and his cohorts Abdul Macaumpang and Rolando Patiño, confirmed by the PNP leadership, was made more galling by the fact that they were detained not just in any ordinary jail, one of those crowded, vermin-infested hell holes that can be found in police stations across the country. The three were held at Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police, at the detention center of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force.

NAKTAF head Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., who happens to be the incoming PNP chief, said the three suspects changed the padlock of their detention cell, then scaled a high wall ringed with barbed wire behind the building, which was supposed to be under heavy guard.

A Korean is still in the hands of the Pentagon, a gang widely believed to be the fund-raising criminal arm of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front which is negotiating peace with the government. Preying on foreigners has landed the Pentagon in an international list of terrorist groups. Among its prominent hostages were Italian priest Giuseppe Pierantoni, Canadian Pierre Belanguer and three Chinese engineers.

At the time of his apprehension, there were suspicions that Marohombsar in fact had been eased out of the gang in a power play that revolved around money. Marohombsar nevertheless was deemed a prized catch for the government. You’d think the PNP would have kept him under lock and key.

Over the past years, however, the PNP has rarely failed to disappoint public expectations. Criminal investigations are bungled and suspects can’t be caught. When the bad guys are finally apprehended, they can’t even be kept under detention. Meanwhile, President Arroyo says peace and order will be her next focus after the economy. That was the joke of the day yesterday.