WITH a P124-million proposed budget for 2018, the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) plans to hire 50 more personnel to beef up security and to prevent smuggling of contraband in the facility.
During their budget hearing yesterday before the Provincial Board (PB) committee on budget and appropriations, CPDRC Deputy Warden Audesti Miguel also said the request to assign more officers in the provincial jail at Barangay Kalunasan, Cebu City, is also their solution to prevent the supplies of inmates from being stolen.
Miguel said that there were reports of jail officers caught stealing supplies such as food for the 3,600 inmates in CPDRC.
“I have personally caught security officers stealing food intended for the inmates,” he said.
He also said that those apprehended were blue guards or those under a security agency; thus, the CPDRC officials could not directly impose sanctions against them.
“Unlike jail guards, the security agency is handling them (therefore) they are not under the jurisdiction of the provincial government,” he said.
He, however, said that he would meet with the security agency officials to discuss how they would handle this issue.
Miguel was also referring to the October 13 incident where 10 jail guards and two CPDRC staff members were placed under preventive suspension by the Capitol’s Committee on Discipline and Investigation (Codi) after they found probable cause to probe them on the allegations that they were conniving with inmates such as smuggling illegal drugs in the facility.
The CPDRC’s 60 jail guards are both from the Capitol and police officers from the Provincial Public Safety Company (PPSC) whose presence were requested by the Capitol after the recent greyhound operations yielded contraband such as illegal drugs and gambling money. /USC Intern Therese Alegado