The Special Action Force contingent deployed last year to secure the maximum-security compound of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City where most of the high profile and hardened inmates are detained will be replaced by the end of this month.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II made the statement after admitting the possibility that some of the SAF personnel might have been tempted by the huge amount of money involved in the illegal drugs trade that resulted to the resurgence of illegal drug trade inside the NBP.
“We have already made a request to the leadership of the SAF less than a month ago,” Aguirre said.
He added that the replacement of the SAF contingent by a new team will probably take place by the end of July.
Aguirre, however, said that the illegal drugs trade inside the national penitentiary was small compared to the previous years.
He said that the authorities were able to neutralize the narcotics trade inside the national penitentiary to a large extent and that the resurgence of the illegal activity is only about five to 10 percent.
President Rodrigo Duterte last year had said that 75 percent of the illegal drugs in the country came from the national penitentiary, prompting him to deploy the SAF to replace the BuCor jail guards securing the NBP’s maximum security compound.
Duterte accused former Justice secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima of being behind the illegal drugs activity, an accusation the latter has denied.
Aguirre said he will order a probe on some members of the SAF who may have been involved in the resurgence of the illegal drug trade inside the NBP
“I have received reports that there were some reactivation, we are doing something about this, we are going to end this resurgence, some sort of resurgence by some inmates. I talked to [Bureau of Corrections] Director General Benjamin delos Santos last Saturday, and we know what we are going to do,” he said.
He noted that some members of the police’s elite force may have been involved due to their familiarity with the inmates.
“We have successfully curbed 75 percent of the illegal drug trade. If ever, the resurgence is about five to 10 percent only and we are going to clip it again,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre said charges would be filed against any SAF personnel who would be found involved in illegal drug activities inside the NBP.Aguirre said that he considered the neutralization of drug syndicates inside the NBP as one of his biggest accomplishments during his one year term in office, and a resurgence of such groups inside the facility should be dealt with immediately.
Aguirre noted that 70 to 75 percent of illegal drugs in the country were being trafficked from inside the NBP prior to the assumption of the Duterte administration.
Delos Santos, meanwhile, said that any narcotics trade inside the NBP was small and that they are doing everything to prevent a resurgence of the illegal drugs trade.
“It is not a large-scale drug trade, maybe some sachets were smuggled inside. The large-scale trade is on the outside),” he said.
Delos Santo shared Aguirre’s opinion that there could be some SAF personnel tempted by the substantial amount of money involved in the illegal activity.
Aside from the deployment of a 330-strong SAF contingent to the NBP, the DOJ had installed several South Korean-made signal jammers to disrupt communication signals at Building 14 where majority of the high-profile inmates that are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade are detained.
Aguirre said then that those involved in the drugs trade used cellular phones to communicate with their colleagues outside.
Meanwhile, a group of inmates have turned over contrabands to officials of Bureau of Corrections, a Department of Justice official said on Tuesday.
Citing reports from Delos Santos himself, Justice Undersecretary Erickson Balmes said members of the Sigue-Sigue Sputnik gang surrendered illegal items such as six large plastic sachets of methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as shabu; 30 small sachets of shabu; two ice picks; and one cellular phone on Monday.
He said the surrender of the contrabands was “a result of dialogue/negotiaions. With PNA