ILLEGAL GAMBLING, DRUGS IN CPDRC

Police officers inventory the contraband they confiscated during Tuesday’s greyhound operation at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC). The items confiscated included packs of suspected shabu, illegal gambling paraphernalia, mobile phones and improvised knives.

Suertres tally sheets among those seized during Operation Greyhound

A jail facility known for its dancing inmates has become a haven of not just illegal drugs but also illegal gambling.

Police found more than 20 tally sheets of Suertres as well as lists of code names, number combinations and bet money during Operation Greyhound at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) in Barangay Kalunasan, Cebu City.

Also seized by operatives of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) on Tuesday were P18,000 worth of cash believed to be proceeds from illegal gambling.

“The items we found are enough proof that the inmates are involved in gambling inside the CPDRC,” said Supt. Mario Baquiran, head of the CPPO’s Provincial Public Safety Company.

The police also confiscated 20 grams of shabu worth P236,000, mobile phones, assorted drug paraphernalia, bladed weapons, portable DVD players and other electronic gadgets.

Tuesday’s greyhound operation had been the fifth since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his post last July 1, 2016.

Baquiran asked the CPDRC officials to improve its security measures to avoid the entry of contraband.

CPDRC Acting Jail Warden Roberto “Bobby” Legaspi immediately ordered the suspension of all jail visits starting Wednesday.

Baquiran decided to conduct the raid after receiving a tip regarding the illegal operations inside the CPDRC.

He said he received information from a concerned citizen last Friday regarding the presence of two kilos of shabu inside the CPDRC.

The contraband was reportedly brought in together with the food and some cooking ingredients for the inmates.

Baquiran said he coordinated with the CPPO’s Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit and hatched the greyhound operation.

The surprised raid started at 1:40 p.m. and was finished two hours after.

Most of the illegal drugs were found at the CPDRC canteen.

Gambling tally sheets were recovered from all the four cells that were raided: cell numbers 69, 72, 32 and 46.

Baquiran said the operators used the winning combination of Suertes, a three-digit number games operated by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, to discourage the operation of illegal number games like jueteng and masiao.

Suertes has three draws daily — 1:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. — and the winning numbers must be in the exact order.

Baquiran said that for every bet of P1, the winner in the CPDRC-style Suertes would get P400.

Aside from tally sheets, the police also recovered at least 15 sheets of paper in the raided cells.

Each paper contained 10 code names and their corresponding three-digit combination and amount.

Some names were marked with a “star” that led authorities to believe that these might have been the inmates who got the right winning combination.

Baquiran admitted that they had yet to identify the persons involved in the illegal gambling operation inside the jail facility.

The shabu, in the meantime, were found on the piles of egg trays inside the canteen.

Although they did not find the two kilos of shabu reported by the informant, Baquiran said he believed that the illegal drugs seized during the raid were part of the contraband sneaked into the facility.

“These can be portions of that two kilos of shabu that was reportedly brought inside the jail,” he said.

The rest, he said, may have been distributed elsewhere.

Baquiran said the seized drugs were turned over to the Provincial Intelligence Branch for custody.

“We are conducting an investigation,” he added. Baquiran said they would determine whether or not the current consignees tasked to deliver food to

the inmates were responsible for the entry of illegal drugs inside the provincial jail.

He said their informant told them the illegal drugs were intended for some high-value targets (HVT) who were arrested and detained at the CPDRC.

Of the 2,800 inmates at the provincial jail, at least 10 of them were considered HVTs.

Baquiran, however, refused to reveal the names of the controversial inmates so as not to compromise future operations and pending the investigation conducted by the police.

The police also raided the jail cell of alleged big-time drug lord Alvaro “Barok” Alvaro, but the operatives did not find any contraband.

Chief Insp. Roland Aliser, head of the CPPO’s Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit, recommended a total revamp of all jail guards at the provincial facility due to the possibility that some of them might have conspired with the inmates to allow the entry of the illegal substance.

Legaspi suggested that the Operation Greyhound be conducted inside the CPDRC every month.

He also welcomed any investigation conducted by the police if only to address the entry of contraband inside the CPDRC.

“Because as you can see, we do not have the necessary expertise to help them in finding out the suspects in this case,” said Legaspi.

“These are crimes coming from the outside, but as to the security in the jail, I’ll be making a recommendation to Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III to make it a requirement for food consignees to undergo a bidding process,” he added.

The CPDRC gained international prominence in 2007 when video of the inmates dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” went viral after it was posted on YouTube, a video-sharing website.

But this year, CPDRC had been subjected to at least five Operation Greyhound on suspicion that illegal drugs were rampant in the facility.

Last June 22, a surprise raid led to the confiscation of money remittance records at the CPDRC believed to have been part of the illegal drugs operation in the facility.

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

At present, the facility, which is designed for just 1,500 inmates, has about 2,800 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.