Jail officer caught with P.5-million cocaine

MANILA, Philippines - A Caloocan City jail officer was arrested during a drug bust conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) outside the prison facility Friday afternoon.

Senior Jail Officer 1 Ernesto Billones was reportedly caught “red-handed” by the PDEA agents, led by Superintendent Wilkins Villanueva, with around 100 grams of cocaine at around 4 p.m.

“We arrested the suspect with some 100 grams of cocaine worth around P500,000 through an informant,” Villanueva told The STAR.

Billones met with PDEA undercover agents at the corner of Dagat-Dagatan Avenue and Tanigue street, only a few meters away from the Caloocan City Jail and the Northern Police District headquarters.

Caloocan City Jail warden Superintendent Lyndon Torres said Billones attended the “personnel inventory” conducted by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) National Capital Region officers at around 10:20 a.m.

Billones’ official duty as desk officer was supposed to start at 3 p.m. but a few hours before it, he was observed to be “restless,” Torres said.

“Billones was seen by his fellow officers often attending to his cell phone and moments before he assumed his post he changed into his type-B uniform, went out of the jail facility and boarded his motorcycle,” Torres said.

The jail officers were surprised when armed PDEA agents and officers from the BJMP national headquarters, upon orders of BJMP Director Rosendo Dial, raided the prison facility at around 8:20 p.m. to search the jail and its inmates for illegal drugs.

Senior Inspector Don Paredes, Torres’ deputy, said Billones is a “dedicated officer” and that they could not think of him getting involved in illegal drugs.

The BJMP personnel, under the supervision of the PDEA agents, searched the prison facility for suspected illegal drugs and gathered several plastic sachets said to be coffee creamer, salt and sugar, which “enterprising” prisoners reportedly sold to their fellow inmates for P1 each.

Field tests conducted on these sachets were inconclusive, Villanueva said.

PDEA agentsleft the Caloocan City BJMP at around 12:15 a.m. yesterday and have yet to release the final result of their inspection.