Jailed ‘drug lord’, who allegedly threatened police chief, now segregated — jail warden

Surprise jail inspections in concerned inmate's cell only yielded keypad phone, improvised deadly weapons

The jailed drug lord, who allegedly threatened Police Major Alejandro Batobalonos, IMEG-7 chief, has been segregated and placed in a segregation cell at the Cebu City Jail. | CDN Digital stock photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The jailed “drug lord”, who allegedly threatened the police chief of the Integrity Monitoring and Enhancement Group (IMEG-7), has already been segregated and placed in a segregation cell.

This, despite, Cebu City Jail warden and his team finding only a keypad cellphone during two Greyhound operations (surprise jail inspections) in the drug lord’s cell, which was conducted after Police Major Alejandro Batobalonos, (IMEG-7) chief, informed the jail warden of the threats.

“Amoang giverify, naay amoang PDL (person deprived of liberty), then with his information nga naggamit sya og cellphone. Actually gigreyhound nato na namo iyang selda. Kaduha na nato gi greyhound kay niingon naman sad si Major Batobalonos nga sige ra gihapon [threats],” said Supt. Jose Abueva, Cebu City jail warden.

(We verified the information about our PDL that he was using a cellphone. Actually, we conducted two greyhound operations targeting his cell after Major Batobalonos informed us that the threats were still there.)

Abueva was referring to alleged threats against Batobalonos from a comment of an article posted on a Facebook account on April 24. Batobalonos claimed that they traced the account and identified the owner of the account as that of the jailed drug lord.

Batobalonos said that the drug lord had accused him of being the one allegedly behind the killing of Ritchie Nepomuceno, the vital witness of the robbery, extortion case against 11 Sawang Calero Police Station policemen.

Nepomuceno was gunned down by unidentified motorcycle riding gunmen along Natalio Bacalso Avenue in Cebu City.

Keypad cellphone found in cell

Abueva said that they confiscated a cellphone inside the jail cell that the drug lord shared with at least 100 other inmates.

He, however, said that this was from one of the inmates and not from the drug lord, and this was only a keypad cellphone and not a smartphone.

The Jail warden and his team also confiscated improvised weapons during the greyhound operations.

“Ang katong nga cellphone nga naconfiscate, sa pagtan aw namo, mga keypad ra, walay android o touchscreens, pero kasagaran improvised deadly weapons…sulod sa pag greyhound nato,wa man jod siya makuhaan og cellphone sa iyang possession,” Abueva said.

(The cellphone that we confiscated was a keypad one. There was no Android or touchscreen phones, but we confiscated several improvised deadly weapons. And during the greyhound operations, we never caught him [the drug lord] having a cellphone in his possession.)

He also said that concerned inmate did not admit to making the threats against Batobalonos, but he denied being the live-in partner of Nepomuceno. 

The inmate told Abueva that Nepomuceno only visited him once and that was in 2019.

Jailed ‘drug lord’ now an ordinary PDL

Abueva also said that the once known drug lord was now only an ordinary PDL (person deprived of liberty) in the Cebu City Jail.

“Sa una, usa ni siya sa known nga PDL [drug lord]. Later on, siguro na nagkashortage siya financially, ordinaryo nalang siya nga PDL, muduyog na ni siya og mga religious activities,” he said.

(At first, he was a known PDL [drug lord]. Later on, perhaps due to a lack of finances, he became an ordinary PDL and he would now even join religious activities.)

Earlier, Police Brigadier General Ronnie Montejo, Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) chief, said that they had already coordinated with the city jail to conduct an investigation regarding the alleged threats that Batobalonos received.

“Amo gyud na siya gi aksyunan. In fact, nasalang na na siya sa disciplinary board unya ang decision sa disciplinary board kay isegregate siya para dili na siya makabuhat sa iyang alleged nga complaint nga sige siya og threat ni Major,” said Montejo.

(We acted on this. In fact, the concerned inmate had faced the disciplinary board and the board decided to segregate the inmate so that he could not continue to threaten the Major [Batobalonos].)

As of now, Abueva said that the inmate was already placed in a segregation cell and was under the monitoring of the disciplinary board.

/dbs

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