EDITORIAL - Sleeping in the noodle house

Share prices fell yesterday, there’s a nationwide security alert, and a manhunt has been launched for four military officers who escaped Tuesday night from the detention facility at the Philippine Army headquarters at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig. The four Oakwood mutineers escaped a month after their co-accused, Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon, was virtually allowed to walk to freedom by his military escort in Makati last month.

The latest escape is made more disgraceful by the declaration of Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon that they were actually tipped off about a possible escape attempt by the mutineers. Like the recent New People’s Army raid on the Batangas provincial jail to free nine communist rebels — an operation that was tipped off to the Philippine National Police — no action was taken to beef up security around the detained Oakwood mutineers.

Both the escapes of Faeldon and the four others were staged with unusual ease, which inevitably raises suspicions that other military officers were in cahoots with the mutineers. The military security escort of Faeldon has not even been meted proper punishment, which makes you wonder if the government itself is getting tired of keeping the mutineers in detention and is allowing them to escape one by one.

Faeldon, a virtual unknown until his escape, has been merrily making the rounds of military and police camps and having his photos taken for posting in his website. His antics do not necessarily mean he enjoys the support of the military and police, but rather that no one knows him and no one is looking for him. His sightseeing at the camps must have emboldened the other mutineers. If no one bothers to look for escapees, why remain in detention?

The country is already gaining notoriety for the escapes of terrorists, kidnappers and drug dealers from supposedly well-secured detention facilities at the headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Now even mutineers are waltzing out of the headquarters of the Philippine Army. Are all military and police jail guards sleeping in the pansitan or noodle house? When will the commander-in-chief get mad as hell?

There won’t be a coup as a result of the latest jailbreak. But now we have not just one but five jobless military officers with too much time on their hands, posing for photo and video ops in military and police camps, thumbing their noses at authorities and aggravating jitters in an easily excitable nation.