Drug lords held at penal farm prefer Bilibid – BuCor chief

MANILA, Philippines — Convicted drug lords serving time at the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm (SPPF) in Occidental Mindoro province are reportedly “moving heaven and earth” to be returned to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City, where they can supposedly resume their narcotics operations in the capital region even behind prison walls, according to the chief of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. on Wednesday ordered BuCor officials to closely monitor the activities of SPPF inmates, citing reports they were being “recruited” by drug lords to mount a protest and seek their relocation back to New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

“I ordered Corrections Chief Supt. Ruben Veneracion, superintendent of SPPF, to be always on the lookout and put his personnel guarding the PDLs (persons deprived of liberty) on rotation to avoid familiarity since there are reports reaching us that the drug lords are having a hard time at Sablayan,” the BuCor chief said.

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Signature campaign

“They are planning to hold a protest rally aside from gathering signatures among PDLs to petition that they be brought back to Manila—for obvious reasons,” Catapang added.

Since August, BuCor said, almost 500 high-profile inmates and drug lords from NBP, including 171 Chinese nationals, have been transferred to SPPF’s “super-maximum” facility to decongest the national penitentiary and “paralyze their nefarious activities.”

“In Sablayan, there is no telecommunications signal so these drug lords cannot communicate and continue their business outside their cell. They are now bribing the guards there to smuggle satellite phones in,” Catapang said.

The penal farm covers an area of about 16,190 hectares in the seaside town of Sablayan.

“Because it’s difficult for the drug lords to communicate outside, some of them went to the extent of writing down their messages to their lackeys on pieces of paper. They would then talk to the guards to take a photo of the message (on how) to do the transactions,” he added.

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But Catapang maintained that while the problem of illegal drugs still exists in the NBP, it may no longer be considered the nexus of the narcotics trade in the country as it had “significantly changed for the better” in the NBP.

He said he wanted to keep it that way before the NBP’s scheduled closure in 2028.On Oct. 10, BuCor signed an agreement with the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police, and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to better ‘’synchronize’’ their antidrug operations, especially those directed at prison facilities and penal farms.

Under the agreement, an operations center will be set up inside NBP for an “interagency collaborative group” composed of the signatory agencies.