EDITORIAL — The great escape

The mystery of one vanished inmate at the New Bilibid Prison has been solved.

It turns out Michael Angelo Catarroja was not among those whose remains were found in a mass grave in the maximum security compound of the prison; he had escaped around a month ago.

Catarroja was arrested for the second time last week in Angono, Rizal, where he was staying at the house of a relative.

How he busted out remains a mystery because Catarroja had two stories, each worthy of an action film script. First, he said that he sneaked out with visitors after forging the stamp used to indicate who should be allowed to leave the prison. But later on he said he just hitched a ride on the garbage truck that came to pick up trash in the jail.

In both versions Catarroja said he was acting alone.

But Angono police chief Major Lauro Moratillo said there is a third possibility, that he could have been aided by jail guards in exchange for something. This is a scenario that the Bureau of Corrections also said was highly possible.

Any of the scenarios don t present jail authorities in a good light.

As if the national penitentiary didn t have enough problems dealing with the inmate congestion, the lack of everything, the slow grind of justice, and the continued operation of criminal enterprises from within the jail, now they have to deal with possibility that just about anyone with the right plan, or the right connections, or just plain dumb luck can escape the jail without authorities noticing.

If this incident doesn t spur our lawmakers and jail officials to make changes to how the prison system is being run, then we can expect more daring escapes such as this one. And while such escapes actually make for good reporting and possible movie scripts, they are bad for the image of the authorities who will be revealed as incompetent and for the public who have to deal with the danger escaped inmates present.