EDITORIAL - Gone missing

Whether Rolito Go escaped or was kidnapped from the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa, it does not speak well of the personnel tasked to secure convicts in the nation’s main penitentiary. Go’s relatives told the Department of Justice that he had been kidnapped, together with his nurse-nephew, and the captors were demanding P1 million in ransom. Who has the capability to kidnap an inmate from a national prison? That sounds like a shakedown that the DOJ must look into.

The convicted murderer is suffering from colon cancer and will reportedly be up for parole next year, after two decades behind bars. Two of his previous petitions for an early release were turned down amid strong opposition from his victim’s family. Go failed to appear for the late-night headcount Tuesday at the NBP’s minimum-security compound. His family sought the DOJ’s help yesterday morning.

Go was sentenced to life in prison for the road rage killing of De la Salle engineering graduate Eldon Maguan along Wilson street in Greenhills, San Juan on July 2, 1991. A living-out prisoner, it is possible that Go escaped. He bolted the Rizal provincial jail a few weeks after he was convicted in 1994, but was recaptured on April 30, 1996 in Pampanga. His escape stirred up much noise about the nation’s porous detention facilities but did not lead to significant reforms. In subsequent years, high-profile inmates continued to walk out of jails and even the maximum-security detention facilities of the Philippine National Police headquarters at Camp Crame.

Go’s alleged kidnapping for ransom, however, is also plausible. Those who recaptured him in 1996 said several government officials helped the wealthy contractor during his years in hiding. Go’s family reportedly remains wealthy. If NBP personnel are involved in his latest disappearance, it could be a shakedown case. The DOJ, which has supervision over the Bureau of Corrections, should hold officials accountable and launch a probe into the pervasiveness of the practice in the prison system.