Jail guard plucks out inmate’s nails to admit theft

A jail guard who used a pair of pliers to remove the fingernails of an inmate to force him to admit robbing a jail warden of P2,000 cash, was ordered dismissed from the service by Rizal Gov. Rebecca Ynares.

Ynares ordered the dismissal of Security Agent 1 Modesto Sanvictores, assigned at the Rizal provincial jail in Taytay town, even if he (Sanvictores) and the victim, Philip Galvez, 22, had settled the issue amicably.

Earlier, retired Senior Inspector Ricardo de Guzman, the jail warden, recommended to Ynares the dismissal of Sanvictores to serve as a warning to jail guards not to resort to human rights violations to extract confession from suspected criminals.

In a report to Ynares, De Guzman said Galvez was suspected to have taken P2,000 cash last December from one of the pockets of the pants of his predecessor, Superintendent Renato Quintana, now the police chief of Cainta town.

Galvez, who was serving his sentence for drug pushing, had reportedly earned the trust and confidence of the jail guards who occasionally asked him to clean their offices, including Quintana’s.

When Quintana discovered that his money was missing, he ordered Sanvictores to investigate it.

Sanvictores suspected Galvez as the culprit and brought him to one of the rooms in the provincial jail. Using a pair of pliers, the jail guard plucked out all the fingernails of the inmate after he repeatedly denied stealing the money.

The following day, Quintana learned about the incident and immediately sent Galvez to the Angono District Hospital for treatment.

When De Guzman took over as jail warden, he immediately recommended Sanvictores’ dismissal.

The STAR tried to reach Sanvictores for comment but failed.