The joke is that if the country’s top crime lords “in session assembled” in Bilibid will band under one umbrella, the latter can be aptly called PCCI—Philippine Chamber of Crimes Inc.
For that is the image which the recent raid of their “condojails” conveyed, of their cells functioning as corporate headquarters of their nefarious trade, which should have been dismantled by their incarceration but instead have flourished.
Many reasons have been advanced on why many crime bosses serving time in the national penitentiary have managed “to command and control” their network despite their being behind bars where contact with the outside world is blocked.
First is that Bilibid, like the rest of the country, has become a communication hotspot. And when this can be accessed by phones no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and USBs smaller than a matchbox then connectivity so important in business is achieved.
Felons no longer send orders scribbled on rolled papers squeezed through gaps in the mortars of prison walls . Today, that is taken care of by Internet portals.
The result is the underworld’s BPO – a Bilibid Processing Office, where a click of a mouse can theoretically send a command to pull a trigger.
Second is that a prison , especially one with a population in the thousands, is a networker’s paradise.
Jails have become reunion places of persons of the same trade where they can reconnect with associates and resurrect interrupted pursuits.
Imagine a place where a convention of like-minded fellows is being held all year long.
The result is that businesses are incubated in a place which serves as a one-stop shop where capital, connections, and manpower can be sourced.
As to personnel needs, no worry because prisons are job fairs that do not close.
So thanks to the wonders of talk-and-text, these plans are executed. Prison walls prevent escape but it is not firewalled against two-way communication.
As to profits made in the outside world, they are remitted back to the nerve center.
On this, there is no fear of pilferage in income because the leaders of jail organizations—many of whom are themselves behind bars—enforce a culture which exacts a heavy punishment on dishonesty in custody of funds.
And yes, like any enterprise they do pay a tax but not the kind which is acknowledged by a BIR receipt, but “tributes” which grease palms and swing open prison gates, and oil the support machinery of friendly guards.
The end is that prisons have become an oasis where crime bosses continue to ply their trade undisturbed and , above all, free from fear of being arrested and convicted— for they already are .
From the point of view of risk management, doing something illegal while inside a prison is good because it comes with a built-in alibi.
There lies the supreme irony of Bilibid serving as a protective enclave, the criminal equivalent of a tax-free export processing zone, where crime bosses are left to do their thing because the element of suspicion is no longer present.
And that is what gave Bilibid “crimetrepreneurs” the perfect smokescreen. Of being placed outside suspicion because jailtime is supposed to stop—and cure—a person from doing bad things.
But unknown to us, jailtime gifted them with the perfect cover. Instead of being a place of rehabilitation, the Bilibid and the like have become finishing schools of underworld bosses on prison sabbatical.
However, it is unfair to picture the whole jail population as sleeping on pillows stuffed with peso bills and who can order midnight snack or nocturnal companion.
For every imprisoned Taipan of crime relaxing in an ensuite jacuzzi, there are hundreds of inmates who have to wait in line for their every-other-day half-a-pail bath.
For every crime boss who can have fastfood meal delivered to his cell, there are hundreds who wipe out with gusto every morsel in their ration of rancid food.
For every convicted lord who is given a pass to see a doctor in some expensive hospital, there are hundreds of ailing prisoners who wait for weeks for a pill from unstocked jail pharmacies.
For every prison don who wraps himself up in a thick comforter at night due to the cold aircon blast, there are hundreds who have to sleep in turns, standing up, because every square inch of the jammed selda floor is occupied.
For every penitentiary bigshot who caucuses or carouses with his visitors every day , there are hundreds who haven’t had any dalaw for a month, and more who have been totally forgotten by kith and kin.
If there are problems plaguing the penal system which is bigger than jails being used as command centers by crime bosses then it is the congestion, unhygienic conditions, lack of food, absence of rehabilitative facilities in our jails.
Add to it the slow grinding of the wheels of justice which lead many unsentenced inmates to stay in prison longer than the maximum jail time that the crime they are accused of prescribes.
Add the old, infirm, sick prisoners who in the spirit of compassion must be released.
The rich crime bosses who used both correctional officials and facilities in enlarging their lucrative empire are the tip of the iceberg. Stopping their trade is not the only prison reform needed.
The most urgent involves how making our penal system truly rehabilitative that when an inmate has paid his dues he will rejoin society a reformed individual—and not as a foot soldier armed with a mission order from a crime boss he served in prison.
It is about making a person who had ran afoul with law a better man , not a bitter man.