Sorsogon governor wants warden, jail guards sacked

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – Sorsogon Gov. Raul Lee has asked the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) to replace the warden and all jail guards in his province amid reports that they were bringing female inmates out even without court orders.

Lee said he has formed a team to check the veracity of the reports that provincial warden Rodolfo Escote and the jail guards have allegedly been getting female inmates out of the detention center, having them drunk, and then pimping them to male customers.

“Meantime that this investigation is going on, I already requested high-ranking BJMP officials to replace all their jail guards assigned in Sorsogon, including the provincial jail warden,” Lee said in a radio interview.

Lee’s action stemmed from an incident on the night of Oct. 21, when the gun ban was still in effect, when Senior Inspector Dennis Pabelonia and his team responded to a report that a man, with a handgun tucked in a hip holster, was boarding a vehicle together with two male companions and 10 women near the pier in Barangay Talisay, Sorsogon City.

Police arrested the armed man for violation of the gun ban. He was later found to be a jail guard, while his two male companions were his fellow guards and that the 10 women were inmates from the provincial jail and municipal jails in Sorsogon, with one of them five months’ pregnant.

Superintendent Roberto Olitoquit, Sorsogon police director, said they have already charged the armed jail guard with violation of the gun ban, while administrative and criminal complaints are being readied against him and his two fellow guards for bringing the female inmates out without any court order.

The jail guards told the police that the female inmates were allowed to get out of jail supposedly to visit the wakes of deceased relatives.

Olitoquit said they have also started investigating reports that these good-looking female inmates were being pimped outside the jail to male customers allegedly by the jail guards themselves.

“We need to carefully investigate this very serious accusation. As of now, we do not know yet whether this is true or not,” Olitoquit said.