Prison break: Thirteen escape in prison near Manila

At least 13 'high-value' detainees facing drug
charges stormed out of Philippine jail by cutting
through metal grilles.

At least 13 "high-value" detainees facing drug charges have
escaped from a jail in northern Philippines , the latest in a
series of prison breaks in the country, according to
authorities.

The escapees slipped out of the jail in a police camp in 
San Fernando City, north of the capital, Manila, before dawn on Sunday.

"They sawed through the bars of the metal grille," Derrick
Arnold Carreon, spokesman for the Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency, told the AFP news agency, adding 
that an investigation was under way to find out how they got the saw.

The Philippines has frequently suffered mass escapes from
prisons which are usually overcrowded



It was not clear how the prisoners obtained the metal
-cutting materials, and how they got past security at the
 prison gates.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer website reported that the
escapees were inmates from the province of Bulacan, and
have been in jail for at least five months.

The website quoted Juvenal Azurin, an anti-drug agency
official, as saying that the detainees are considered "high-
value targets, because of the volume of illegal drugs seized"

from them.


Azurin was also quoted as saying that a manhunt operation 
is being carried out in Manila and other nearby provinces.

Prisons in the Philippines are usually overcrowded, poorly
maintained and inadequately guarded - and mass escapes 
are frequent.

In the country's biggest jailbreak, more than 150 inmates
escaped a prison in the southern Philippines in January after
about 100 gunmen stormed the facility.

Most of the inmates were later re-arrested.

In August 2016, members of a Muslim armed group that
pledges allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the 
Levant (ISIL ) group stormed a jail in the south and released 23 inmates.