DRUG TRADE IN CPDRC?

GREYHOUND OPERATION. Carl dela Cruz, assistant to the OIC of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), inventories the illegal items confiscated from inmates during the greyhound operation staged by the police early morning on Wednesday, June 22, 2017.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

Police uncover  from an ex-cop-turned-prisoner records that cash from  P40,000 to P70,000  is sent daily to a cash remittance outlet

Do illegal drug operations thrive inside the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC)?

Investigators are looking into the matter after police have seized assorted drug paraphernalia, cellular phones and money remittance records in yet another surprise inspection inside the provincial jail past 7 a.m. on Thursday.

Roberto “Bobby” Legaspi, acting jail warden of the CPDRC, said they are tracing the recipients of the transactions.

Yesterday’s greyhound operation was the fourth since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his post last July 1.

Legaspi refused to make any presumption on whether or not the money remittance records that were written by hand on paper pads came from illegal drug transactions.

“I think it’s too early to speculate. Let us let the experts, the police, do there (sic) investigation first,” said Legaspi in a text message to Cebu Daily News.

“For now, we are not sure if these are drug transactions. Maybe, they are for personal usage only. That is why an investigation has to be done first,” he added.

Daily remittance

The money transaction records recovered by the police showed that about P40,000 to P70,000 is sent by some inmates to a money remittance outlet daily.

Some of the money remittance records were recovered from a former policeman, PO2 Antonio Aguisanda, who has been in jail since 2014 on charges of robbery.

Legaspi said they have the names of the recipients of the cash, but they could not disclose it as yet pending investigation.

He said they were also still tracing which prisoners could be “remitting” those huge sums of money to Aguisanda, who in turn sent it out of the jail.

Legaspi said the surprise inspections inside the CPDRC are meant to completely eradicate illegal drugs and gambling activities inside the jail.

“We are going to do inspections like this weekly or perhaps monthly, but of course it will be done discreetly to surprise the inmates,” he said.

Among the other items seized in yesterday’s operation were lighters, tin foils, 13 empty plastic sachets believed to have contained shabu, 13 cellular phones, an electronic tablet, bladed weapons, gambling materials and medicine tablets, which will be subjected to an examination to determine whether or not they contained illegal substances.

No illegal drugs were found.
The operation was carried out by the Provincial Public Safety Company (PPSC), Cebu Provincial Police Office and the Provincial Intelligence Branch.

Lower contraband yield

An inventory of the seized items was still being done as of 6 p.m. on Thursday.

But Supt. Mario Baquiran, head of the PPSC, said the number of contraband found in yesterday’s greyhound operation was way lower than the previous surprise inspections.

“There’s really a big difference. You can see the decline in the number of drug paraphernalia and cell phones that were seized,” he told reporters.

Baquiran said surprise inspections inside the CPDRC will be done regularly to stop the entry of contraband inside the provincial jail.

Legaspi said he was glad that the number of illegal items inside the jail has died down.

“We’re really happy that no shabu or meth were confiscated. The items seized were mere empty sachets which were probably just undisposed waste lying in their cells for a long time. The folds on the sachets we confiscated indicate that they are pretty old,” he said.

Looking for ‘Rocky’

Legaspi said he recently requested the assistance of the police to conduct a surprise inspection inside the CPDRC after Rolando Escorial, a suspected drug pusher who was arrested in Barili town last Tuesday, claimed that he got his supply of illegal drugs from a certain “Rocky” inside the provincial jail.

He said they conducted an investigation and found out that there were three inmates with the name “Rocky” inside the CPDRC.

However, two of them were already transferred to another penal facility a long time ago, while the third one remains at the CPDRC but is not the one police investigators are looking for.

“The Provincial Intelligence Branch has confirmed that the Rocky inside the CPDRC is not the same drug supplier they are after,” Legaspi said.

“Escorial’s claims are nothing but false information,” he added.

Legaspi begged off from giving the surname of the Rocky who is being investigated by the police in order not to jeopardize future operations.

Tin foil in Barok’s cell

Among those raided by the police yesterday was the detention cell where suspected drug lord Alvaro “Barok” Alvaro is detained together with at least eight inmates.

Found inside the cell were three tin foils — a material in sniffing shabu.

But Legaspi said they could not determine who among the inmates inside the cell owned the tin foils.

“We just have to be more vigilant. The public’s perception is that there are drugs inside the CPDRC. We want to eliminate that,” he said.

The CPDRC, the home of the famous dancing inmates, is operated by the Cebu provincial government.

At present, the facility, which is designed for just 600 inmates, has about 3,000 inmates.

A surprise jail inspection conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7) last February 28 drew flak from human rights advocates after photographs of the inmates who were stripped naked went viral online.

Since then, jail officials have been careful not to violate the inmates’ rights by not allowing media coverage during the actual search and the dissemination of photographs of the detainees.

Cebu Acting Governor Agnes Magpale said the province needs to do more in order to completely rid CPDRC of illegal operations.

“Since there are still sachets and drug paraphernalia that were recovered, that means there are still contrabands that managed to go inside the facility,” she said in an interview yesterday.

“But don’t worry. Greyhound operations at the CPDRC will continue,” she added.