Relatives of inmates deplore extortion activities at Caloocan City Jail

Relatives of Caloocan City Jail inmates assailed yesterday the prison management for allegedly tolerating extortion activities of prison leaders on newly jailed inmates. The complainants claimed that new prisoners are allegedly obliged to pay P750 as admittance fee to jail leaders or are subjected to bodily harm by fellow inmates.

"I already had enough problems when my son was jailed and it was compounded when we were asked to pay several unusual fees," a 49-year-old mother told The STAR.

Aside from the P750 entrance fee, she said, an inmate is also required to have at least one visitor each day or he would also be punished.

"At first, I was not aware of the regulation, so I failed to visit my son on his first day in jail. When I came the next day, he told me that he was mauled by other prisoners for having no visitor the past day," she said.

She added that jail leaders charged each visitor P18 per visit or they would not be allowed to see the prisoner. She also said that her son was made to do several hard prison chores on several occasions for failing to pay the P50 weekly payment to avail of the prison’s VIP treatment.

"I’m really worried about my son’s condition for we are poor, if that is the regulation inside the jail what would happen to him?" she asked.

She claimed that prison management instead of stopping the exploitation on the hapless prisoners even appeared to be tolerating them.

Senior Inspector Roberto Timbreza, chief of Caloocan City Jail escort and custodial section, vehemently denied the allegations, though he admitted that a prisoners’ organization is soliciting money from new inmates on voluntary basis.

"They (inmates) have this organization called Samahang Maka-Diyos which is soliciting some money from new inmates for their own use while they are in jail but this is only voluntary," Timbreza said.

He also denied that VIP treatment exists inside the jail but said that several moneyed inmates used to pay their fellow prisoners to do some prison chores for them.

Timbreza said that the money collected by the organization is subject to proper auditing by the organization and that many of the poor prisoners have already benefited from it.

The Caloocan City Jail, designed only for a maximum of 400 prisoners, as of today, has already a total of 1,246 inmates, Timbreza said.

Allan Salcedo heads the organization. Chief Inspector Teofelo Labating is the jail warden. – Pete Laude