Sunday, August 12, 2007 Cop recaptures Talisay inmate 3 days after fleeing
THREE days after she dashed to freedom, 43-year-old inmate Rosita Obiso was finally recaptured in Barangay Sambag I, Cebu City last Friday.
SPO2 Pedrito Caburnay, a police jailer, sighed with relief, as he was her police escort when she escaped outside the Palace of Justice past 11 a.m. last Tuesday.
Caburnay said he rushed to Cebu City after he got a call from a tipster that Obiso was staying at her friend’s house in Private Road near the Cebu City-owned condominium building.
He said he immediately collared the escapee upon seeing her emerge from the house of a certain Marlyn Punzalan past noon.
He then brought Obiso to the Talisay City police sub-station at City Hall for booking and locked her up at the Talisay City Jail in Maghaway, a mountain barangay, around 1:30 p.m.
Caburnay, who was relieved from his post while he undergoes an administrative investigation, had asked his superior for time so he could locate Obiso.
Obiso, a resident of Barangay Pasil, Cebu City, fled after Caburnay left her in an ambulance parked outside the Palace of Justice.
Guards of Gaisano Fiesta Mall in Barangay Tabunok, Talisay City arrested Obiso for shoplifting last July 18.
The police had used City Hall’s ambulance for lack of available service vehicle to take Anecito Abarquez, another inmate, to the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
SPO3 Joel Wenceslao, Talisay police sub-station acting chief, said Caburnay reportedly left Obiso in the ambulance when he and Abarquez went to the prosecutor’s office for the inquest proceedings.
When Caburnay returned an hour later, Obiso was gone.
Wenceslao said Caburnay should have dropped Obiso off first at the Maghaway jail instead of bringing her to Cebu City along with Abarquez.
But Caburnay said he took Obiso with him to the prosecutor’s office, adding that the woman only escaped after the inquest.
“She took advantage of the people who were coming out from the Palace of Justice,” he said.
Caburnay is temporarily assigned at the Talisay City Police Station in Barangay Poblacion, pending results of the investigation. (GC)
