A search by personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-7 of the Cebu City Jail last Thursday yielded not just various bladed weapons, electronic gadgets, and communication devices, but also a gun, ammunition, and over P1 million in suspected drugs.
Considering how the drugs were packed, it seemed they were being apportioned and parceled out for distribution.
According to authorities, the search was conducted following reports of drug operations going on inside the jail. It might also have been spurred by the recent incident where a jailed drug lord allegedly posted in social media and threatened a police official.
Our jails never really seem to run out of drugs or anything illegal for that matter.
This is concerning given the fact that some inmates are still finding ways to get contraband into the jail even as the visitation rights of their contacts outside --whether family, friends, or others-- have been curtailed because of the ongoing pandemic.
This means people other than their regular visitors are finding ways to smuggle contraband into the jail. And if it’s not the outside contacts of the inmates who are helping them get their hands on illegal goods, then who else could it be but those inside the jail who are not inmates?
Also, some of the confiscated item, particularly the electronics, were too sensitive or delicate to have been delivered via “bombing”, jail slang for throwing something over perimeter wall and into the prison. They had to be handled with care from the outside. So, again, who else?
A lot still has to be done to secure our jails from whatever is coming in from the outside. But on the flip-side there is also a need to secure the outside from what is going on in our jails. Because if reports are to be believed some drug operations are actually being run from the jail by people who are supposed to be detained.
Prison should be a place where inmates are rehabilitated, not a place where they can run a criminal enterprise without fear.