Warden eyes signal jammers for Mandaue jail

Signal jammers that will be installed in Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. (CDN FILE PHOTO)

THE Mandaue City Jail has proposed to install signal-jamming devices within the facility in its effort to prevent the inmates from engaging in illegal drug activities inside the jail.

Mandaue City Jail warden Supt. Renante Rubio has brought up the matter to Mayor Gabriel Luis Quisumbing during their peace and order council meeting roughly two weeks ago.

“The mayor is very supportive to this move,” Rubio told Cebu Daily News.

Currently, the jail has 1,425 inmates, of which more than 900 are detained for drug-related cases.

“We are still scouting for suppliers of high-technology signal-jamming devices. These devices will only be installed within a 15-meter radius to avoid disrupting the cellular signal of the residential areas surrounding the jail facility,” Rubio said.

Rubio added that they are also discouraging jail guards from bringing and using their own mobile phones while on duty.

Rubio said they are also enforcing their daily greyhound operation to ensure that inmates are not using mobile phones.

During their most recent greyhound operation, Rubio said they were able to confiscate 10 mobile phones from inmates. The gadgets were believed to have been given by their respective visitors.

Last January 28, a female visitor was arrested after attempting to sneak in a mobile phone inside the jail facility.

Thelma Jopia, 50, wrapped the cellular phone on her left arm, near the armpit, with an adhesive tape, while the battery was hidden inside her bra.
Jopia, a resident of Barangay Casili in Mandaue City, was visiting a relative past 10 a.m. when JO1 Maria Lyrra Bandoquillo, who was manning the jail’s female frisking area, noticed the cellular phone on her arm.