Pot, phones from jails destroyed
Contraband items were found during surprise jail inspections in different jails over the past eight months. Haul included cellphones, phone accessories, sim cards, memory cards, drug paraphernalia, and bladed weapons, among others. An Oplan Linis Piitan
More than 1,000 contraband items, including 327 phones and 21 packs of cigarettes, were crushed or burned yesterday when the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) 7 celebrated its 27th anniversary.
BJMP teams confiscated these items in surprise inspections from Nov. 20, 2017 up to July 2018 in the city jails of Cebu, LapuLapu, Mandaue and Talisay.
A separate inspection in the Cebu City Jail yesterday yielded no illegal drugs, but did bring four phones, chargers, and improvised weapons to the surface.
Supt. Arnold Buenacosa, regional director, said that the BJMP will seek the local governments’ help in disposing of the seized contraband items that had hazardous components.
The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) 7 destroyed more than a thousand contraband items found in jails.
During the agency’s 27th anniversary yesterday, BJMP 7 Director Supt. Arnold Buenacosa said that the move was part of their intense campaign against the smuggling of contraband in jails.
“The contraband were accumulated from various greyhound (surprise) operations in different jails,” he said.
The destroyed items were seized by BJMP personnel in jails from Nov. 20 last year up to July this year.
Destroyed yesterday were 327 cellphones, 116 phone accessories, 179 sim cards and memory cards, 55 drug paraphernalia, 21 packs of cigaNational rette, 208 improvised bladed weapons, 113 dried tobacco leaves and a fishing string.
The contraband items were confiscated from the male and female dormitories of the jails of Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue and Talisay.
Buenacosa said they will dispose of the contraband properly as some contained hazardous materials.
“We will ask the garbage disposal facility of the City Government to take care of its proper disposal,” he said.
In a related development, no illegal drugs were found inside the male and female dormitories of the Cebu City Jail during the Oplan Linis Piitan yesterday.
Councilor Dave Tumulak said, though, that authorities recovered various improvised weapons, four phones, improvised ropes, playing cards, pieces of wood and cellular phone chargers, among others.
Tumulak, deputy mayor for police matters, said the result of yesterday’s operation shows that the security measures being implemented inside the jail are effective.
“It seems effective ang security measures gipatuman sa jail in cooperation sa police, including the initiative of the warden and all mayors or cell leaders to curb illegal drugs in jail,” he said.
Tumulak said that inmates, particularly those who are officers of each detention cell, signed a covenant that they will not tolerate those doing illegal activities inside the facility. /