Convicts run 7 crime syndicates

Let’s not leave un-refuted the misleading reply of his campaign donors to my piece, “Treason raps filed vs Sen. Trillanes.” Never mind if they call me “malicious” for quoting Senate records and the charge sheet; name-calling is the recourse of the lost. It’s their making things up about Scarborough Shoal that needs exposing, for our country’s sake.

They claim that: (1) “The country did not lose Scarborough ... as it is (still) the subject of our arbitration case at The Hague”; and (2) “Filipino fishing vessels are still inside the shoal ... a year after (Trillanes’) backchannel talks.” Really now.

Manila filed for arbitration, which Trillanes opposes by the way, precisely because Beijing grabbed Scarborough. The arbitration was our peaceful response to invasion. Then Beijing itself announced the barring of Filipino fishers from the shoal within our 200-mile EEZ yet 900 miles from China’s coast. Chinese Coast Guards, straying far beyond their own EEZ, fire automatic rifles and water cannons at our fishers who venture too near. Last weekend they accosted a boatload of Filipino youth patriots who tried to float our flag inside the shoal lagoon.

Let not Beijing’s apparatchiks think we’re all traitors. Remember the sacrifices of our forebears. On the eve of invasion in 1941 they had warned of enemy spy infiltration and recruitment of collaborative politicos, like the grandfather of a future President.

* * *

It’s unsurprising that convicted narco-traffickers would put up a P50-million bounty to assassinate incoming President Rody Duterte. They will be first to get hurt in Duterte’s promised war against crime. From intelligence reports, one-fifth of the “shabu” (meth) sold in the streets is cooked inside prison. That was done in the dozen or so “kubol” (huts) of VIP convicts on the sprawling grounds of the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City. That 20-percent share of the narco-trade translates to P400 million a year. Fifteen prison gang bosses and four Chinese convicts allegedly divvy up the loot. Part goes to crooked prison officials and guards. Pitching back P50 million to stop Duterte is a small “investment” to continue the illicit prison trade.

It’s not only narco-trafficking that’s done from behind bars. Syndicates inside execute other heinous crimes, according to intel reports. These are: murder-for-hire coupled with gun running, kidnapping for ransom, bank robbery, extortion coupled with the protection racket, illegal gambling, and money laundering.

Prisoners are let out for the night to assassinate, abduct, or rob, then conveniently returned to jail where the cops can’t find them. Convicted gang bosses provide muscle – members on the loose – to provincial gambling lords. Aside from serving as bodyguards, gang men peddle drugs or collect “jueteng” (illegal numbers) bets. Thirty-five local officials whom Duterte says are narco-politicians likely are also the gambling lords in their locales. They launder the dirty money through rural banks and pawnshops owned by the convicts.

One intel report illustrates how prison syndicates “convince” a new warden to play along. Two large expandable envelopes are sent to the official. One contains P5 million cash. The other has photographs of the official’s wife relaxing at, say, her favorite beauty parlor, and their children in school uniform. The message is clear: we know the hangouts of your loved ones and so can hurt them; but if you take the money, there’s more coming monthly.

Duterte’s appointees must have copies of those intel reports. They reportedly plan a total prisons cleanup. Lined up is the replacement of guards who literally were born inside penal colonies and inherited their positions from parents, so have unusual ties with hardened life-termers. To be transferred to stricter new prisons are the recidivist syndicate bosses. And to continue is the “O-Plan Galugad (Ransack)” of present Bureau of Corrections director Ricardo Rainier Cruz III and prison superintendent Richard Schwarzkopf. Their surprise raids of the National Penitentiary wards, 35 as of mid-May, continue to flush out guns, bullets, grenades, daggers, drugs, and cell phones. One time they discovered in the many kubol cash in the millions of pesos, bill counting machines, jacuzzis, flat-screen TV sets, disco-concert audio-light equipment, CCTVs, and machine pistols. Confiscation of such contraband made the gang bosses retaliate with threats or prison riots.

Most provocative perhaps for the VIP convicts is Duterte’s desire to restore the death penalty. If he would get his way, executions will be not by lethal injection but hanging. The former supposedly is too light, as the convict is merely “put to sleep.” Struggling for breath characterizes hanging, before the knot snaps the condemned’s nape. Duterte foresees 50 executions per month. Since convicts who persist in heinous crimes are likely to be first in line for capital punishment, they naturally will fight “patay kung patay” (to the death) with the P50 million to get Duterte.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA

E-mail: [email protected]