Friday, November 23, 2007 2 more minors return to Second Chance
TWO minors who escaped from the Cebu City Operation Second Chance (CCOSC) were brought back to the facility in Barangay Kalunasan yesterday.
“They (boys in Carcar) did not resist because they were assured of their safety,” Cebu City Councilor Gerardo Carillo said in a phone interview last night.
Carillo, who just got back from Operation Second Chance, said he told the house parents to take care of the minors, who were allegedly abused, “otherwise they will have to be answerable.”
He said they will secure an order from the court today so that the “abused” minors will be moved to another facility while the investigation is ongoing at the CCOSC.
The two boys were fetched from Carcar City. One of them has a relative there, who contacted another relative who works as a jail guard at the Cebu City jail.
The guard then arranged for the transport of the two children back to Cebu City. Seven boys bolted from CCOSC last Monday night, but two were recaptured right after the escape.
They were reportedly abused the past weeks, prompting them to saw off iron grills and scale fences.
Carillo said they have already identified the perpetrators of the abuse but withheld their names pending an investigation.
‘No difference’
Meanwhile, even if the CCOSC jail warden was replaced, Mayor Tomas Osmeña doubts anything will change in the way the facility is run.
Osmeña said movements within the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) are just like a game of musical chairs where an inefficient warden is transferred from one jail to another.
“They’ll just put another bad warden there, what’s the difference? It’s like playing musical chairs. We’re under the illusion that we’re getting someone new, but we’re getting another recycled warden from somewhere else,” he said.
“I still have no confidence in BJMP,” the mayor told reporters in an interview after the mass oath taking of newly elected barangay officials at the Rizal Memorial Museum building yesterday.
Osmeña said the P1,000 monthly allowance City Hall gives to BJMP personnel at the CCOSC will be suspended “until they can prove they deserve it.”
The mayor cancelled the allowance after the escape of seven minor detainees of the facility in Barangay Kalunasan last Monday night.
Going to court
Osmeña and his wife Margot were upset when former jail warden Jennifer Joyce Abar failed to report the escape to the CCOSC management board, as well as the complaints on the alleged physical abuse inflicted on the escapees while they were detained in the isolation cell.
The alleged abuse reportedly prompted the seven boys to bolt from the jail.
One turned himself in to Margot, co-chairperson of the Cebu City Task Force on Street Children and member of the CCOSC management board.
Carillo, also a member of the management board, is preparing the affidavits of the minors to be used in the filing of a child abuse complaint against three BJMP guards who allegedly abused them.
They have already identified the guards who allegedly pounded on the boys’ heels while they were made to kneel on a bench. But Carillo said they will name them only after the complaint is filed in court. (LCR/With GAC)
