All guards at NBP are corrupt

Bantag said about 95 percent of the NBP personnel are corrupt. He’s even being kind, because of them are corrupt.

The guards and other personnel at the NBP earn from inmates who ask for special privileges like being able to obtain and keep cellphones and appliances like refrigerators, television sets, electric fans, and, until lately, being able to live in

(private dwellings inside the prison compound).

All have since been dismantled.

NBP personnel allow liquor, other alcoholic drinks and cigarettes to get in for hefty sums.

The NBP compound is a veritable bazaar. A pack of cigarettes, for instance, sells like gold inside the prison compound.

And do you think the drug lords serving time at the NBP are able to sell drugs inside the prison compound and in the outside world without the permission of BuCor guards and other personnel?

Even the police Special Action Force (SAF) troopers assigned to the NBP are now on the take.

Bantag warned BuCor personnel to leave before he gets rid of them.

In that case, Bantag should replace all of them with fresh recruits from the outside.

As long as the old guards are still at the NBP, contraband will still get into the prison compound.

Guards will look the other way after their palms are greased so visitors can slip in contraband like cellphones, liquor, guns, knives, refrigerators, TV sets and drugs.

The strict new BuCor chief has caused low morale among the guards and other personnel.

“All of us here are suffering from low morale. Who would not be disheartened after your new boss said 95 percent of us here are corrupt,” said a BuCor employee who told a reporter but asked for anonymity.

Of course, Bantag was correct in generalizing because all — as in

— guards and other personnel are either on the take from inmates or are tolerating their fellow guards who are.

An employee who condones a fellow corrupt employee is himself (or herself) corrupt; he is as guilty as the corrupt employee.

The culture of (silence) among prison guards at the national penitentiary is partly due to blood relations among them.

Many BuCor personnel are related to one another as uncles, nephews, nieces, brothers, sisters, cousins, distant relatives or

about is another story.

Now, would a guard tell on another guard who is related to him by blood? Chances would not. are, he

The only way for corruption to stop at the NBP is to transfer all of the guards and other personnel to jobs outside of BuCor, probably to serve as security personnel in other related agencies of the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Oh, yes, they have security of tenure since most of them probably have civil service eligibility, but what is there to stop the higher-ups from assigning them to other agencies within the DoJ?

While new recruits at the NBP are being trained to replace the old guards, troops from the Philippine Marine Corps or Philippine Army could temporarily take over guard duties.

No policemen or personnel from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), please!

Policemen and BJMP personnel can easily be corrupted if they are not yet corrupt.

And while Malacañang is mulling the possibility of reforming the country’s penal system, may I suggest that it recall Vicente Vinarao, twice-appointed BuCor chief, from retirement?

Vinarao, a retired police major general, has written several books on how to reform the country’s penal system.

He has been asked by the past Congress to help draft penal laws.

I recommended Vinarao to then Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre 2nd when he was newly appointed to the DoJ three years ago.

But then, I didn’t know that Aguirre had sinister plans for the BuCor and other agencies under the DoJ.