At city jail: Communication gadgets remains biggest problem

CEBU, Philippines —  Communication gadgets inside the Cebu City Jail remain the biggest challenge of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) in the fight against illegal drugs.

Police Lt. Colonel Wilbert Parilla, deputy city director for operations of CCPO, said on Monday that more than 50 percent of their operations against illegal drugs were traced to have links inside the city jail.

"That is a big challenge (communications inside) kay ang main source naa sa sulod, then ang atong mga madakpan is only ang mga sinaligan lang nila…if mabaw-an wala sad tay mahimo kay naa naman sud, ang atoa lang unta ma stop ang communication gikan sa sulod," said Parilla.

He said that those they arrested with large volume of illegal drugs were receiving instructions from their contacts inside the city jail. It has become police’s biggest challenge because they allegedly cannot trace because the people involved only use aliases.

Recently, a high value individual was arrested by the operatives of Pardo police station in Villa Zacate, Barangay Basak Pardo,Cebu City.

Authorities identified the suspect as Randy Aranduque, 35. His name was included in the database of Police Regional Office-7 as high-value drug personality. At least 150 grams of shabu worth P1 million were confiscated from his possession.

The police said Aranduque also sourced his drug supply from somebody inside the city jail.

"Based on our investigation siya ni ang sinaligan, the same gihapon ang iyang story, ang iyang source is naa gihapon sa sulod," said Parilla.

Just like their previous arrests, Parilla observed that Aranduque provided an alias of an inmate inside the city jail who had given him the transactions.

"Dili na nato ma trace kay according to him, mao ra sad ang gihatag sa ila na name, mao ra ilang nahibaw-an," said Parilla.

The CCPO has been in constant communication with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) to identify the inmates involved but no results of the investigation until now.

Parilla said they have quarterly meetings with the BJMP initiated by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on the issue.

Among the plans to solve the problem is to install a signal jammer and conduct continuous greyhound operations.

"They also have their own internal cleansing kay based sa ilang investigation, naa say mga personnel, kay wala man laing makasulod sa sulod sa BJMP...kay naa silay pagduda sa ilang mga personnel so that's why naa sad silay own internal cleansing sa BJMP, just to check kung asa ang source sa gadgets nganong di mahurot," said Parilla. — FPL (FREEMAN)