Jail visits limited after hostage threat

Visitors at the Cebu City Jail could not enter the facility after the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology received a call of a plot to hold hostage visitors for a massive jail break.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA

OFFICIALS of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology limited jail visitors at the Cebu City Jail after receiving a phone call at around 4 a.m. that inmates planned to take hostage visitors yesterday, a scheduled “dalaw” or visiting day, and stage a jail break.

They cut down visiting time to only five minutes and let in only 20 visitors at a time, resulting to complaints from the inmates’ family members.

The phone call alert, which proved to be a hoax, said the inmates planned a jail break and would use the visitors as human shields.

BJMP Regional Director, Senior Supt. Dennis Rocamora suspects high-value inmates inside the jail were behind the plot and instigated the younger ones to rebel against jail management.

He believes that some of them were angry and wanted to replace the warden after their visiting privileges were curtailed.

“Kasi ang policy namin dito kapag nahulihan ka ng drugs, automatic lahat ng visiting privileges nila, kino-curtailed natin. Hindi naman sobrang mahigpit, resonable lang naman yung paghihigpit namin kasi nga may violation sila, yun yung parusa kung ikaw ay nag-violate ng rules natin,” Rocamora said.

(It is our policy to curtail visiting privileges if an inmate is caught with drugs. We are not very strict, just reasonable. If you violate the rules, then you are punished.)

“Ngayon yung mga malalaking isda na nakakulong diyan, kino-convince nila yung ibang inmate na mag-aklas o ano lumaban sa administrasyon.

Hindi naman kasi magagawa yan ng mga ordinaryong inmate natin, hindi naman sila gagawa ng ganyang banta kung walang nag-uudyok,” he added.

(Those big fish, they convince the other inmates to rebel against the administration. The ordinary inmates wouldn’t do that if nobody instigates them.)

Deputy Jail Warden, Senior Insp. Francisco Pujol Jr., said they limited the visitors’ entry and visiting time although after a few hours, visiting hours were restored.

“Ang gipasud nato, tigti-20 aron makita nato and ma-assist nato. So gumawa tayo ng paraan para ma-continuous ang dalaw. Tumawag yung operations ng region na may tumawag sa kanila na nagbigay ng information, and we validated it. And when we assured na okay, walang ganyang report, kaya back to normal na,” Pujol told reporters.

(We allowed 20 visitors at a time so that visitation could continue. And when we were assured that the report was a hoax, we restored visitation hours.)

Pujol said visitors are are allowed to enter the facility from 8 a.m. to 4.p.m., on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.