Guards at the Ma-a City Jail are nosier now on illegal drugs spirited into the Jail following the confiscation of ₱ 2,080,000 worth of shabu weighing 130 grams hidden as soft broom hairs.
Jail Chief Inspector Ian Glenn Ocmen, City Jail Warden said the hidden drugs were intercepted as those were brought in the facility.
He said cellular phones are not allowed even for jail guards on duty inside the jail facility.
Ocmen said pocket money is also reduced at ₱ 1, 000/ month for persons deprived of liberty and ₱ 2, 000 for the jail personnel designed to keep away transactions related to illegal drugs.
“As long as cellular phones are available, transactions on illegal drugs continue to happen,” he said.
Antonio Rivera, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency XI lauded the efforts of Jail Warden Ocmen for ensuring that the illegal drug operation is watched and controlled in the City Jail.
He said the efforts of the City Jail in ensuring tempering the illegal drug operation in the jail facility is worth emulating.
Rivera hopes the illegal drugs will be minimized even with the end of the Duterte Administration.
He also lamented the lamented the involvement of government employees to illegal drugs.
Rivera said four were arrested in 2020 while two government employees were arrested this year, a teacher and a contact tracer.
He stressed drug test must be done in all government agencies to keep government personnel from illegal drugs.
Rivera stressed drug test is a way to see that the government worker is fit to work and to protect them from illegal drug-use.
(Joey Sem G. Dalumpines, PIA XI | Michael Manguhig, RPN DXKT Davao OIC)