MANILA, 15 March 2005 — It was to have been a routine head count, but the guards never got to finish it.
In a flash, some of the country’s most dangerous Abu Sayyaf bandits yesterday overpowered their guards, grabbed their weapons and seized control of at least two floors of a maximum security detention quarter at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig City.
Three guards and two Abu Sayyaf detainees were killed in the bloody jail breakout attempt, the latest to embarrass President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s administration.
It was at about 6:45 a.m., shortly after breakfast, while the guards were conducting a routine count of detainees at the Special Intensive Care Area (SICA) at the camp, when 10 Abu Sayyaf members attacked them.
“This led to ... the takeover,” Philippine National Police spokespman Sr. Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil said.
Police named some of the most notorious detainees — Commander Kosovo, Commander Global, Muklis Yunos and Commander Robot — as among those behind the takeover.
A jail guard said that one prisoner stabbed a guard with a metal spike before grabbing his gun and shooting two others dead.
Two other jail guards were wounded.
Officials said that initially, the detainees agreed in principle to lay down their arms but talks later hit a snag after the Abu Sayyaf demanded food first before agreeing to come out. Police insisted they give up their weapons first.
As of 10 p.m. last night, negotiations had broken down and police said that while an assault was remote, they were not ruling out such an option.
The SICA holds 435 high-profile inmates, including 129 Abu Sayyaf members.
In the wake of the attempted escape, Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes ordered the preventive suspension of the warden, Supt. Romeo Elisan, and four other jail officers.
Two of the ASG members who grabbed the guards’ weapons were identified by police as Kosovo, or Alhamser Limbong, and Kair Abdulgaffar. Both are facing charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention.
Limbong is accused of involvement in a mass kidnapping in 2001-2002 in Palawan province that left several hostages dead, including two Americans, and in the bombing of the SuperFerry 14 a year ago that killed more than 100 people in the Philippines’ worst terror attack.
Another kidnap suspect but not an ASG member, identified as Piga Edcel Manuel Tomas, also took part in the mutiny, police said.
“I’d like to emphasize that these are groups of terrorists, hardened and dangerous criminals. We are not going to think twice to launch an assault,” Bataoil said.
He spoke to reporters while Gov. Parouk Hussin of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and Anak Mindanao party-list Rep. Mujib Hataman were negotiating with the ASG to persuade the group to surrender.
By mid-afternoon, officials said they had obtained an agreement from the detainees that they would surrender and lay down their weapons.
But the standoff persisted as night fell, or about 10 hours after the drama began.
An armored personnel carrier moved to the front of the steel-fenced detention center. Another was positioned outside the gate.
In a building across from the detention center, about two dozen police took cover. Several ambulances were on standby.
Bataoil said the first two floors of the besieged building held 129 ASG members while the third and fourth floors held suspected members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and several Chinese arrested for drug trafficking.
A series of gunshots that ensued between the ASG and the jail guards killed jail officer-4 Edgar Dajay, JO1 Rogelio de la Cruz and JO1 Amadeo Salapate.
Salapate was pronounced dead on arrival at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Pasay City, Superintendent Agrimero Cruz Jr., information chief of the NCRPO, said.
Dajay and De la Cruz died on the spot, Cruz said.
Wounded were JO1 Albert Lubrio and JO1 Sheroky Bilidli.
Bataoil named one of the ASG fatalities as Burnham Hadji Abdullah Paraha. The name of the other ASG casualty had yet to be determined.
