POLICE Regional Office (PRO) director Chief Supt. Noli Taliño assures that there are no hidden stockades in Central Visayas.
Taliño said he has designated supervisors in all police stations in the region to make sure there are no secret detention facilities where suspects are illegally detained.
“I already had all police stations inspected, but there are no secret cells,” said Taliño in an interview yesterday.
He said Commission on Human Rights (CHR) representatives are free to inspect all the detention facilities for them to see the inmates’ situation.
“The CHR is welcome,” Taliño said.
The primary concern of the police, he said, is jail congestion — a problem that has hounded all jails in the country for years now.
Taliño said police stations only serve as temporary detention cells while waiting for the commitment orders from the courts.
Once the judge orders the transfer of the inmates, the region’s top police official said inmates should be turned over either to the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) or the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)–run jails.
“Some of our policemen had problems like the CPDRC or BJMP refused to receive inmates because they too are congested. We already talked about this and now they are again accepting detainees from the police stations,” he said.
Last week, lawyers from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), following a tip about drug suspects being held for extortion, were shocked to discover 12 men and women detained in a secret cell behind a shelf in a Manila police station.
The arrests were purportedly not recorded.
Human rights advocates believed that the police demanded money from the suspects, and if the latter won’t give in, charges will be filed against them./Xavier University Intern Jeasselle Villabolos