“All roads lead to the New Bilibid Prison.”
This was how Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong described the gravity of the drug problem at the state penitentiary in Muntinlupa City involving high-profile inmates, government officials, and law enforcement officers.
Magalong appeared at the sixth hearing of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights yesterday on the Good Conduct Time Allowance law, which branched out to other corrupt and money-making practices inside the Bilibid, including illegal drug activities.
He was the former Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group director who tipped the Department of Justice about the illegal drug and other criminal activities managed by prisoners and prompted the December 2014 raid at the NBP.
Magalong said he believes the problem is still prevalent and might have “evolved” into other schemes, although he noted that the Duterte administration has been working to address the issue.
Like in the 2016 House inquiry on the Bilibid drug trade, Magalong told the Senate panel that he knew about these after his former unit looked into the modus of rogue policemen called “agaw-bato” and their recycling of seized drug evidence.
Part of the scheme, he said, is to arrest Chinese drug traffickers and free them in exchange for money. The ransom amounted to as much as P50 million which policemen share among themselves.
Afterwards, the rogue PNP members arrest another suspect as a replacement to present as the “original” drug trafficker.
It was then revealed that the personalities involved in the agaw-bato modus were dealing with high-profile Chinese inmates in the NBP.
“Lumalabas po na all roads practically lead to NBP. We found out that despite being detained inside the NBP, Chinese lords continue to remotely manage the drug trade in the entire country,” Magalong said.
He added that there is “no truth” to reports that drug lords were also managing drug laboratories inside the NBP as they knew that plants would be “easier” to build and maintain outside the prison.
The information, Magalong said, was based from reports from Bureau of Corrections insiders.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, reacting to the Baguio mayor’s testimony, recalled Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Aaron Aquino saying in an earlier budget hearing that illegal drug recycling is still rampant today.
Drilon asked Magalong if the rogue policemen involved in the modus are still in service, the city chief executive said “Yes.”
Magalong later met members of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee in an executive session in which he named the active police officers supposedly involved in illegal drug recycling.
But during the hearing, Magalong said that the involved policemen are “medyo mataas na.”
Magalong, who retired from the PNP in December 2016, said he believes that drug recycling by policemen remains.
“Sa tingin ko, Sir, tuloy-tuloy pa rin…Pero hindi po siguro ganon ka-grabe noong panahon na kami po ay nasa PDEA at nasa PNP. Siguro ngayon, iba na po ang kanilang scale,” he said in response to Drilon.
“I believe it’s still existing, until now,” Magalong said, describing it as a “serious” problem in the PNP.
As for the NBP, Magalong said the problem in corruption could not be solved by merely strengthening the authority and control of the Department of Justice over the BuCor.
“The problem in BuCor is structural and systemic,” said Magalong, who called for a complete organizational audit of the prisons bureau.
Magalong said he believes that drug lords may still be operating their drug businesses, if not shifted to other rackets.
He said he continues to receive information from his BuCor sources about the drug trade inside the NBP two years after his retirement which all turned out “positive.”
While he has lost touch with the law enforcement agencies, Magalong surmised that their behavior and lifestyle cannot be reformed easily. “So they have to maintain, gagawa at gagawa ng paraan para makakuha ng additional income,” he said. (Vanne Terrazola)