Adult inmates using juveniles?: Contrabands in facility for minors ‘alarming’

CEBU, Philippines - Even at a facility for children in conflict with the law contraband like illegal drugs enter at an “alarming” rate.

Operation Second Chance Executive Director Merlinda Metante said while before they confiscated just a pack or two of cigarettes, the number of seized contrabands have increased and they already include illegal drugs hidden inside a cigarette pack.

The most recent case is the seizure of 156 packs of cigarettes, lighters, a pack of shabu, and plastic bags.

“Dili kalikayan nga naay mosulod, apan kini grabe na kaayo…alarming na. Sa una usa or duha ra, usually naay magpalusot gyud kay ang area sa gawas nato open. Masakpan man na sa atoa personnel, but dili maka-identify kinsay galabay ug kinsay gilabayan,” she said yesterday.

Unidentified persons, she said, throw the contraband from outside the facility and over its perimeter walls to be picked up by their contacts inside the facility, which is just beside the Cebu City Jail.

She said the minors and inmates would just use hand signals as their means of communication.

Due to what had happened, Metante coordinated with the male and female jail guards to help in monitoring the area where minors in turn reportedly throw the contraband over to the inmates.

She tapped the jail guards to address this problem considering that effective last April 1, the city government is already the one operating the facility instead of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

Operation Second Chance has 40 personnel from the city government’s Department of Social Welfare and Services guarding 183 minors (as of yesterday) in conflict with the law. Of the number, only 94 came from Cebu City.

Meanwhile, City Councilor David Tumulak, chairman of the council committee on public order and safety, said they were tapping Guadalupe Police Station for increased police visibility in the area where contraband is thrown from.

“Dia ang hepe sa Guadalupe Police Station (Chief Inspector Elisandro Quijano) for their police visibility.  Then atoang pasakaan ang paril para walay hand signal nga mahitabo.  Pasigaan nato ang whole vicinity kay dili ta gusto nga mahimong instrumento sa kriminal nga gimbuhaton ang mga bata,” Tumulak said.

He speculated that the contraband likely came from habal-habal (motorcycle-for-hire) drivers in the area. Because of this, he requested the cooperation of legitimate habal-habal drivers in the area for them to help identify the culprits.

He believed that the Cebu City Jail inmates and the minors inside Operation Second Chance had been doing this for some time already.

“Basin dunay something in return maong nituman ang mga bata sa mando sa mga inmates or nahadlok lang gyud,” he said.

Metante warned that minors caught involving themselves in this modus of sneaking in contraband to the Cebu City Jail through their facility would face transfer.

Meanwhile, Cebu City Jail deputy warden Richard Tulabing said that starting yesterday he designated jail guards to monitor inmates to keep them from communicating with the minors. (FREEMAN)