The usual police line — jail guards “sleeping on the job” — has become a tired, old alibi.

	The late Pentagon leader Faisal Marohombsar

THE best time for big-time criminals behind bars to "escape" from jail is apparently during shakeups within the Philippine National Police. That's one conclusion that can be drawn from three of the more infamous jailbreaks that have taken place so far during the Arroyo administration.

Luisito San Juan, self-confessed gunman in the 1996 murder of human-rights lawyer Clarence Agarao, supposedly bolted the provincial jail in Laguna on January 21, 2001, the same morning that Director General Leandro Mendoza was taking his oath as the new PNP boss, replacing Gen. (and now Senator) Panfilo Lacson.

Faisal Marohombsar, leader of the dreaded Pentagon Kidnap Group in Mindanao, casually walked out of the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force's maximum security detention cell in Camp Crame on June 19, 2002, a few days before Director General Hermogenes Ebdane was to leave his post as deputy PNP director and NAKTAF chief and take over from Mendoza, who had been named secretary of transportation.

Henry Tan, a suspected Chinese drug lord who was arrested in Zambales while in possession of P700-million worth of shabu, took off from his tightly guarded detention cell at the then newly created Presidential Drug Enforcement Agency, also in Camp Crame, on September 29, 2002, a day before police general Efren Fernandez was relieved as PDEA executive director and transferred to the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime.

The PNP's usual line that jail guards were "sleeping on the job" when these escapes took place simply doesn't wash with some anti-crime NGOs. For Agarao's widow Carina, who is now head of the Crusade Against Violence, the "sirang rehas (broken bars)" excuse is also one refrain she has gotten tired of hearing from law enforcers. As she points out, the bent bars that San Juan allegedly squeezed through at the Laguna provincial jail were placed at a considerable height — well above the head of her husband's gunman. "Wouldn't it have made sense," says Agarao, "if he destroyed bars that were lower and then crawled out?"

Tan's escape had also baffled lawmakers like Bukidnon Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri, Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco, and Sen. Robert Barbers. In just a span of a few hours, Tan had supposedly sawn the iron grills in his cell, squeezed through the small opening he made, jumped out of the detention center, walked around Camp Crame, scaled the perimeter wall and then escaped. Barbers, a former police official, observed that it would have taken at least 10 days just to saw off the bars.

For Marohombsar, there were no bent or sawn grills. By his own account, he and fellow detainees Abdul Macaumpang and Rolando Patinio — also suspected kidnap gang leaders — scaled the three-layer fence at the back of their detention cell in the middle of the night. They had changed their cell's padlocks with those that their visitors had brought. The guards were said to have inspected the visitors' bags, but not their pockets. Marohombsar flagged down a cab, headed for the airport, and boarded a commercial flight to Davao City.

In San Juan's case, Agarao insists no escape ever took place, citing the series of events that transpired on the morning of January 21, 2001. She was on her way to President Arroyo's residence with other anti-crime group leaders to stop Mendoza's oathtaking. Agarao had strongly opposed the appointment of Mendoza, whom she said had been protecting the mastermind of her husband's slaying, Mayor Renato Macalalag of Lumban, Laguna. San Juan was ready to spill the beans at the time of his "escape."

Amid worries that something would happen to San Juan, Laguna police chief Wilfredo Dulay had made it a point to sleep at the provincial police headquarters. But he was suddenly summoned by then Laguna Governor and now Interior Secretary Jose Lina to the provincial capitol to deal with a petty theft case in Pagsanjan. After Dulay left, a call came from someone the policemen described as "big." Not long after, Agarao was told, a group of men dragged San Juan out his cell after he refused to go with them.

Tan, meanwhile, supposedly had protectors within the police who were uncertain about the suspected drug lord's fate because of the worsening infighting within PDEA. So, says one insider, they took advantage of the repositioning taking place within the institution and let him go.

As for Marohombsar, quite a number of people within the PNP still believe he was allowed to walk to his freedom — despite the kidnap gang leader's statement to the contrary — to embarrass Ebdane. A source from the PNP says Ebdane "was being programmed to fail."

What do criminal suspects do when they escape jail? They take up where they left off.

Tan's network allegedly remains intact, albeit broken up into smaller facilities operating inside houses in quiet subdivisions, away from the prying eyes of the public and the police. Tan himself is believed to be still in the country, although some say he has moved south.

After eight months of silence, San Juan resurfaced on October 29, 2001 in Teresa, Rizal where he and three others ambushed and killed Mayor Bernardo Sayarot of Mabitac, Laguna and his aide, Gabriel Fuertes. A responding cop was also killed. San Juan, who was purportedly hired by Sayarot's political rival, former barangay chair Benito Moncada of Paagahan, Mabitac, remains at large and carries a P300,000-bounty on his head.

From Mindanao, Marohombsar made his way back to Metro Manila, joined forces with Macaumpang and Patinio, and kidnapped four-year-old Patricia Lopez Chung, a scion of the Lopez clan, and her nanny. Police gunned down Marohombsar on August 25, 2002 in Cavite during the rescue operation. Patinio, who was charged with the abduction of Grace Ong and the killing of self-styled military group spokesperson Baron Cervantes, was killed a few weeks later, also in Cavite, after he kidnapped Jose Karlo Penano. Macaumpang is still at large.—Yvonne T. Chua