Warden quits; gangs win
Even before his superiors could investigate the complaints against him, the warden of Manila City Jail resigned from his post a day after the inmates staged a noise barrage demanding his removal.
“I still have honor and a sense of delicadeza (propriety). I don’t want my name tainted by those accusations. Even my family is now affected so I decided to step down,” Supt. Lyndon Torres said in a press conference at the jail compound on Friday.
Torres said he also decided to “go on leave” lest he be accused of impeding the investigation into the inmates’ complaints, and that he would leave it to his superiors in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) whether to assign him again in Manila.
They may do so, he said, “once they find out that the allegations against me are not true.”
About 3,000 inmates on Thursday staged a noise barrage to protest the new regulations imposed by Torres, like shorter visiting hours and a so-called plastics ban in the congested jail.
The inmates also alleged that Torres had become so strict to the point of hurting some of them.
But the warden defended his actions, saying they were necessary especially to curb the smuggling of contraband.
He said he had also received word that someone had placed “a bounty” on his head because of what he had done in the jail.
The noise barrage was mainly instigated by members of Batang City Jail and Sputnik gangs, who even asked for a dialogue with former President and now Manila Mayor-elect Joseph Estrada.
Torres was replaced by Supt. Noel Montalvo and would be temporarily assigned at the BJMP’s National Capital Region office.
