Three days after a combat-trained police force was put in charge of New Bilibid Prison (NBP), reports of maltreatment have reached the Catholic priest who ministers to the inmates.
Msgr. Roberto Olaguer, the NBP chaplain, said many inmates had complained that their new guards from the Special Action Force (SAF) were using violence to enforce prison rules.
He said a SAF officer allegedly punched a prisoner in the stomach for not wearing the orange NBP uniform. Another inmate also took a punch just for saying “good morning” to an officer, while a Muslim inmate was called out for sporting a beard, which a SAF member allegedly pulled.
“These are just things that have been shared with me; I did not see these incidents for myself, so I still have to verify if they are true,” Olaguer said in an interview on Saturday.
Awakened at 3 a.m.
“Some [inmates] told me that they were roused from sleep by the SAF around 3 a.m. just to check if they were wearing their uniforms while inside their cells. But it’s just natural for some inmates to not wear shirts while sleeping because of the heat.”
Since the SAF took over on Wednesday, visiting schedules have also been disrupted, with the inmates’ families unable to enter despite being promised a 30-minute pass by NBP Supt. Roberto Rabo, the priest said. “It seems the SAF aren’t answering [to Rabo].”
Reached for comment, Chief Supt. Benjamin Lusa, the head of the SAF battalion assigned to NBP, denied the allegations against his men. “That is not true. We don’t do that. We are professional police officers.”
‘Due respect, courtesy’
Despite the strict orders for them to secure Bilibid, it is also in their mandate to treat the prisoners with “due respect and courtesy,” Lusa said on the phone.
Olaguer said he himself had felt the SAF’s strictness when he was almost barred from entering the prison facility in Muntinlupa City because he forgot to wear his ID.
As to the visitors being barred since Wednesday, Lusa explained that this was only due to ongoing operations inside the prison, particularly at the maximum security compound, to rid the buildings of contraband.
He did not give a specific answer when asked how long the operations would last, citing the large NBP area they still have to cover.
Meanwhile, Olaguer said, the 217 guards from the Bureau of Corrections who were replaced by the SAF were “demoralized” because they felt they were “branded as scalawags.” The BuCor guards are currently undergoing “retraining” at Camp Vicente Lim, Calamba, Laguna, he said.