Bato goes to jail

May 8, 2018 Opinion Sideglance

The title above is a simple play of words but one that highlights the intense campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte in his administration’s war against drugs.

This time around former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald dela Rosa is set to wage this war not on the streets of our cities and provinces but deep within the prison system of the Muntinlupa National Penitentiary where convicted drug lords are said to be continuing with their nefarious and illegal activity of dealing and selling drugs especially ‘shabu’.

Also known as ‘Bato’ the former chief PNP will surely have his hands full trying to stave off the tsunami of illegal drugs that are being brought and sold into the country using the prison system as a pipeline. There is no question that convicted drug lords, whether the old ones already suffering life imprisonment or the new ones just convicted of illegal drugs, are ferociously plying their illegal trade right inside the prisons where they are incarcerated. While such illegal operations are also being conducted in other prisons the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa seems to have become the center of the base of their operations considering that it has twice the population of any prison in the country and houses the top drug lords who are mostly Chinese nationals.

With dela Rosa as the new head of the Bureau of Corrections (BUCOR) expect a lot of heads to roll, either figuratively or literally, as he attempts to choke the illegal drugs operations within the prison system.

While it will be difficult one thing going for ‘Bato’ is the fact that he does not have to look further beyond the prison walls to locate the purveyors of illegal drugs since the top honchos are all inside his prison at his beck and call. All he has to do is make sure that these convicted drug lords and their cohorts are denied whatever opportunity is available to them, in whatever form or manner, to pursue their illegal operation.

One suggestion to make this effective may be to implement active denial measures such as outside access suppression. This can be done by making sure that any outside contact by a convicted drug lord, already identified as continuing with his illegal operation, is severely limited or restricted. This means that even jail guards or the Special Action Force Personnel of the PNP currently guarding and monitoring high value inmates in the penitentiary are strictly vetted before being allowed to interact with any convicted drug lord.

Another suggestion is to recommend for the putting up of another prison that will house only convicted drug lords where they will be contained in individual cells and monitored 24/7. Interaction and communication with their fellow inmates will be severely restricted if allowed at all, and if they have visitors all their communications will be recorded and monitored by the authorities.

Finally, those found out of having continued with their illegal operations even while in jail will be transferred to an island prison purposely established for that very reason where they will have no more contact with the outside world, except for their guards, for a minimum of one year.

Let us hope that the new BUCOR Chief would be willing to go the extra mile to pursue his objective of ridding the illegal drug operations which have destroyed the very purpose for why the national penitentiary, or any prison for that matter, has been put up.