Probe the jailers
PRO Director: All BJMP officers will be investigated
POLICE Regional Director Chief Supt. Marcelo Morales, said all regional personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management Penology (BJMP) in Davao will be investigated.
Morales issued the statement after the jail raid that 15 grams of shabu, estimated to worth P160,000, were confiscated from the inmates inside the City Jail in Barangay Ma-a on Saturday that also led to the death of four prisoners.
The operation also revealed that a ranking jail officer was using illegal drugs in “high volume.”
“This time, they have
to explain why illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, and bladed weapons were found inside the cells during the greyhound operation,” the police director said.
Morales said they carefully planned the operation for a long time after they received reports that illegal drugs proliferated inside the jail.
“There were reports
from the inside that BJMP personnel were allowing the entry of illegal contraband,” the police director said.
He also cited previous buy-bust operations that they established drug couriers were allowed to enter the city jail.
“We are very happy with the result of the Greyhound Operation. This is a continuing effort to reduce and even stop the proliferation of illegal drugs in the facility,” the regional director said.
The Saturday inspection, dubbed as Durian Wall, at the city jail resulted to a fatal confrontation that also wounded four operatives.
According to the report from the Police Regional Office, a
joint task force composed of operatives from the PRO, BJMP, Davao City Police Office, Regional Mobile Force Battalion, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, staged the surprise operation at 3 a.m. Saturday.
Every inmate was inspected, and so were the cells. Prisoners were also subjected to drug test.
At 10:30 a.m., operatives
were at Cell No. 18 of BJMP Annex Building to direct the inmates to come out from the cell. But four inmates – Alvin Celis, Dexter Delfino, Flor Leonard Restsuro, and Jerry Fernandez, -- attacked the operatives with an improvised gun and knives.
The confrontation resulted to the death of the four inmates and the wounding of four officers.
Operative seized two big sachets of shabu, weighting 15 grams worth P160,000, a voluminous number of drugs paraphernalia and other deadly weapons.
A random drug test on the officers and inmates yielded positive result.
Jail Chief Inspector Roman Hernandez, the provincial jail administrator of BJMP-Davao del Sur who was the former city jail warden, and nine others inmates were found positive.
In a separate interview yesterday, Lawyer Behn Joseph Tesiorna, PDEA assistant regional director, said there was a high level of meth found in Hernandez’s body.
“Meaning, he is a heavy user,” Tesiorna said.
Hernandez was temporarily placed under the PDEA custody.