NBI: Bilibid drug trade never stopped

MANILA, Philippines - The illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) continued despite the government’s efforts to stamp it out, officials said yesterday.

“The drug trade, being a business, is a continuous activity,” National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Dante Gierran said in a press briefing yesterday.

Gierran made the statement to support Justice Undersecretary Antonio Kho Jr.’s answer when he was asked if the seized knives, mobile phones and 14 kilos of shabu indicated the “resurgence” of the drug trade in the state penitentiary.

Kho said the Department of Justice, NBI and the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) have “continuing efforts… to reduce and eliminate the illegal drug trade.”

The knives and mobile phones were seized from inmates at the NBP on Friday morning while the shabu, with a street value of P60 million, was found in an abandoned Toyota Corolla (THH-290) across the Ospital ng Maynila on Friday night. The car had a Philippine National Police sticker on its front windshield.

The same group could be linked to the two incidents, according to information received from the BuCor, which matched the information gleaned by the NBI, said bureau spokesman Ferdinand Lavin and NBI Task Force Against Illegal Drugs chief Ross Galicia.

Kho said the group is involved in large-scale drug deals in the southern part of Metro Manila.

He said BuCor officials wrote the NBI to ask for help to arrest the group’s members. The letter prompted BuCor and NBI agents to conduct separate operations that led to the seizure of the knives, mobile phones and shabu.