Cebu City jail warden relieved

THE warden of the Cebu City Jail has been ordered dismissed from his post after a greyhound operation conducted last Saturday at the jail facility yielded several contraband items.

Supt. Jessie Calumpang was ordered relieved by Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) 7 Regional Director Dennis Rocamora immediately after the raid.

Calumpang will be replaced by Supt. Arnel Peralta who was previously assigned in the BJMP-7 office.

“Kahit napababa ang incidents of illegal drugs, meron pa ring nakalusot. So, pasensya na lang. Hindi natin tino-tolerate ang pagkukulang ng warden. That is command responsibility,” Rocamora said.

(Even if the number of illegal drug incidents has gone down, still there were drugs that were able to slip through the facility. I’m sorry but we can’t tolerate the shortcomings of the warden. That is command responsibility.)

However, Rocamora lauded the efforts of Calumpang in trying to clean up the jail of illegal activities as shown by the considerable reduction in the number of illegal drugs and other contraband confiscated in the latest greyhound operation.

Saturday’s raid yielded five grams of shabu worth P30,000, some cell phones, a baseball bat and bladed weapons while a previous Operation Greyhound conducted in August last year, resulted in the confiscation of P4.6 million in cash, more than 100 grams of shabu (methamphetamine), cell phones and deadly weapons.

Then warden Supt. Johnson Calub was replaced by Calumpang.

Rocamora explained that it has always been the policy of BJMP to relieve wardens when greyhound operations yield prohibited items in the facilities they manage.

An investigation on jailguards is now being conducted by BJMP-7 to get to the bottom of why contraband items continued to slip through jail security.