Jail officer caught in drug bust charged

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) filed charges against a Caloocan City jail officer Saturday after he was reportedly caught in a drug bust outside the local jail with around 100 grams of cocaine with a street value of P500,000.

Superintendent Lyndon Torres, Caloocan City jail warden, said yesterday that proper charges have been filed against Senior Jail Officer 1 Ernesto Billones before the Caloocan City prosecutor’s office.

Torres said Billones, a “dedicated” officer, had only four more years to go to avail himself of early retirement, which would have entitled him to at least P1.5 million in benefits. These benefits would vanish if he is “proven guilty,” according to Torres.

Billones left the jail at around 3 p.m., when he was supposed to be on duty, after talking to someone on his cell phone. He was arrested an hour later by PDEA agents led by Superintendent Wilkins Villanueva.

Billones’ colleagues only learned of his arrest when PDEA agents, accompanied by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) national headquarters personnel, raided the Caloocan City Jail to search for illegal drugs.

Several sachets of what inmates said were coffee creamer, salt and sugar were gathered and brought to the PDEA headquarters for testing after initial field tests showed they were “negative” of illegal substances.

Villanueva said the result of the final tests would be known within four hours after they left Caloocan City Jail at around 12:15 a.m. Saturday but until yesterday Torres said the test results have not been released.

As a precautionary measure, Torres prohibited yesterday jail personnel from bringing their cell phone inside the prison facility. They could only use the jail’s landline to communicate outside the jail. – Pete Laude