EDITORIAL - Lessons not learned

Government forces went on red alert last July 26 amid reports of a brewing coup. On the same day Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin called on the people to protect President Arroyo amid reports of a power grab. Metro Manila was crawling with government forces. Armored vehicles were deployed around Malacañang.

Early the next day, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police was supposed to be on maximum alert as renegade soldiers had just taken over the Oakwood apartment building in Makati. Yet at 4 a.m., a suspected drug trafficker walked out of Camp Crame. Detainees waltzing out of PNP headquarters is no longer news. What sets apart the escape of Ernesto Lubarbio is that, by the PNP’s own admission, he was handcuffed to a folding bed when he walked out of the police camp.

Lubarbio had been arrested by members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in a drug bust in Bacoor, Cavite last July 26. Police said they found three kilos of shabu valued at around P6 million in his possession. Lubarbio was handcuffed to the folding bed during a lull in his interrogation when he managed to escape from the PDEA office at Camp Crame.

Where did the interrogators go? Since it was 4 a.m., they were probably asleep. No one remembered to detail at least one guard to keep an eye on the PDEA’s newest detainee. And no sentry at the heavily fortified gates of Camp Crame noticed a man handcuffed to a folding bed walking out. Did someone spirit out Lubarbio, folding bed, pillow and blanket in tow, in the trunk of a police car?

After the dramatic escape of Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi and two Abu Sayyaf members from Camp Crame last July 14, you’d think the PNP would have learned its lesson. Yet here is another escape, with the circumstances so bizarre the story would be rejected as a plot for a TV sitcom.