32 IDJ GUARDS SACKED
Warden denies guards colluding with drug inmates
ILOILO City – Thirty-two guards of the Iloilo District Jail ( IDJ) in Barangay Nanga, Pototan, Iloilo were relieved from their posts two weeks after an arrested drug pushing suspect claimed she got instructions from inmates at the prison facility.
The guards were reassigned to other jails in Iloilo city and province effective Monday but IDJ warden Senior Inspector Abner Zamora denied this had something to do with the drug pusher’s claim.
The relief order came f rom t he Bureau of J ail Management and Penology ( BJMP) Region 6. Of the 32 guards, two were women. “They were not involved in illegal drugs,” insisted Zamora.
He, however, admitted that the reassignment aimed to prevent jail guards from getting too cozy with i nmates.
The sacked guards had been serving the IDJ for four or five years already.
Zamora said the replacement guards for the IDJ came from other jail facilities such as those in the Iloilo towns of Guimbal, Barotac Viejo, Dumangas, and Pototan, and the BJMP male and female dormitories in Iloilo City.
“Jail guards come and go. Reassignments are not unusual,” said Zamora.
According to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Region 6 director Gil Pabilona recently, jails appeared to be the “weakest link” in the war against illegal drugs.
From their cells, detained drug personalities continue to direct the operation of their minions outside, he revealed.
He specifically named the Iloilo City District Jail – Male Dormitory in Barangay Ungka, Jaro district but said this modus was being practiced not only in that prison facility but in other jails being overseen by the BJMP.
“The illegal drugs supply in Iloilo will not stop unless those people inside the jail will stop directing their people outside what to do,” stressed Pabilona.
A woman drug pushing suspect arrested in Barangay Tubungan, Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo on May 6 claimed getting i nstructions from two IDJ inmates, Pakloy Alarba and Marko dela Cruz.
The 42- year- old Josefina Doctora of Barangay Poblacion Ilaya, Barotac Nuevo was caught after selling a sachet of shabu to an undercover police officer.
The police recovered five more sachets concealed in her underwear and bra.
Prior to her arrest, Doctora visited Alarba and dela Cruz at the IDJ.
A week before Doctora was caught, three other women drug pushing suspects that cops arrested claimed they got instructions, too, from IDJ inmates. The three women were Jenjie Bee Goriona, Vivien Sian and Susan Sobrepeña.
Zamora had been on the defensive since then. He said he interrogated the inmates that the four women identified and all of them issued denials./