Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 17) — Michael Cataroja, the Bilibid inmate who had been missing since July 15, is now with authorities, the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) said Thursday.
\”Initial information that missing PDL (person deprived of liberty) Michael Cataroja is now at the Binangonan Police Station,\” the BuCor Public Information Office told reporters in a message.
Cataroja will be brought first to the Calabarzon regional office of the Philippine National Police in Laguna before turning him over to the BuCor, the bureau added.
In a statement, BuCor Director General Gregorio Catapang, who believed that Cataroja escaped from New Bilibid Prison, said he wants to find out who were responsible for the inmate’s disappearance.
Catapang has ordered the creation of a board for a “full-blown investigation” into how the 25-year-old inmate was recaptured by police in Rizal province after breaking out of the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City.
Prison authorities had to seek help from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the K9 Force of the Philippine Coast Guard for the search and rescue of Cataroja.
During their search, trained dogs went in the direction of a septic tank inside the maximum security compound of the national penitentiary where a bone was retrieved. But the NBI medico-legal division said in a hearing in the House of Representatives that it was a just chicken bone.
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