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Saturday, November 22, 2003
Jail officials took 6 days to hospitalize stabbed inmate: sis
By Minerva B. Gerodias & Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
Sun.Star Staff Reporters
ABOUT three weeks more and he would have been free.
Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC) inmate Joseph Retiza, 23, of Lapu-Lapu City, was set for release on Dec. 11.
He didn’t get to see life outside the Cebu City jail after serving his one-year-and-a-half sentence for robbery.
Retiza died last Wednesday of complications from tuberculosis and a stab wound in the back that a fellow inmate inflicted on him last Oct. 23 over a coin game of “hantak.”
The stabbing inside the BBRC was not reported to the police.
Retiza’s sister Emma said her family was also not told that her brother was stabbed by Boy Saldua, 19, who has four robbery cases as well as cases for concealing a deadly weapon and sniffing of volatile substance.
Worse, she said, her brother was not treated properly and was only taken to the hospital when it was already too late.
She vowed to file complaints against the BBRC management and the inmate who attacked her brother with an ice pick.
She also said they will go to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas on Monday to file a formal complaint.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama, meanwhile, asked BBRC officials for a written explanation on the circumstances behind the death of Retiza.
Aside from BBRC’s report, Rama said he asked his staff to secure a report from the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) where Retiza was confined, and Retiza’s death certificate to determine the lapses.
“Definitely, it (the stabbing) should have been reported to the police,” the vice mayor said.
BBRC Deputy Warden Teotimo Pekitpekit yesterday said they have already reported the matter to Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and have urged Retiza’s family to file murder charges against Saldua.
He said they saw no need to report it to the police since Retiza and Saldua, who reportedly argued over “hantak” and were both members of the jail gang BC 45, reached an “amicable settlement” facilitated by their mayores.
But Emma told reporters yesterday that her father went to BBRC last week to inform the officials that they will file charges against the suspect.
The elder Retiza was reportedly told that he could not file a case because his son was already of age.
“I do not know why there was an ice pick and why there is hantak inside the jail. We will sue them. We are doubtful because they have been hiding the suspect and the incident itself,” Emma said.
She related that she last saw Retiza, the fourth of six siblings, last Nov. 11 and only learned then that he had been stabbed.
She told reporters that her brother was stabbed last Oct. 23 but was only brought to the hospital six days after when he was already paralyzed.
His relatives were informed about his hospitalization only on Nov. 11.
“He had wanted to inform us about his predicament over the radio. They (BBRC officials) really hid the incident from us and that’s what’s making me angry,” she related in Cebuano.
“They only told us that he was sick and had difficulty breathing. It was my brother who insisted that he was stabbed because they were gambling inside and the suspect, a certain Bunso got mad because he lost,” Emma said.
“If they only treated him properly, he would not have died. My brother said he was only given Amoxicillin (an antibiotic drug) by the jail nurse and was not given proper treatment because his wound was only superficial. But I know it was not. While he was in the hospital, he really blamed the nurse for his situation,” Emma also said.
When she saw him last Nov. 11, her brother, who was confined at CCMC twice, could no longer move his legs and his back looked terrible with the stab wound and his bedsores.
Retiza died the following week.
She went to the PNP Crime Laboratory yesterday to request for an autopsy.
“He planned to go home for our reunion during Christmas. I loved him even if he was like that,” Emma said.
(November 22, 2003 issue)
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