Bilibid riot probers careful as they get different versions

Inmates involved in the reported riot inside New Bilibid Prison (NBP) gave authorities conflicting versions of the Sept. 28 incident that left a convicted Chinese drug lord dead and four others wounded, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) official.

“We have to verify and investigate further since there are apparently two versions coming out,” Justice Undersecretary Reynante Orceo said on Thursday.

He added that the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police was leading the probe of the incident, which happened after Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II declared that the state penitentiary in Muntinlupa City had already been cleared of illegal drugs and other contraband.

“We cannot make a conclusion at this point because we still have raw [information],” Orceo said, adding: “We have to be careful about it so the public will not speculate.”

As earlier narrated by Aguirre, an inmate, former police Chief Insp. Clarence Dongail, claimed that he was attacked by Tony Co after he accosted Co and other Chinese convicts for using “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) inside their cell.

Dongail said the attack happened while he was in the prison area of Jaybee Sebastian, a convicted kidnapper whom Sen. Leila de Lima had identified as a government asset during the Aquino administration.

Dongail and Sebastian were wounded in the scuffle, along with inmates Peter Co and Vicente Sy who were supposedly with Tony Co’s group. Tony Co was declared dead on arrival at Muntinlupa Medical Center.

But Orceo said Sebastian and Sy gave a different version of the incident and claimed that Tony Co was not using illegal drugs.

According to Orceo, Sebastian told Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officials that he was watching TV inside the mess hall when another inmate, Tomas Domeña, attacked him with a bladed weapon.

Reports said NBP officials did not find illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia in the area where the Chinese convicts were supposedly using shabu.

This was supported by prison guard Dennis Alfonso, who was among the first to arrive at the scene. In a press conference the other day, he said they did not recover any illegal drugs or paraphernalia.

Alfonso added that Peter Co and Sebastian had claimed that it was Dongail who attacked the three Chinese at the mess hall while Domeña stabbed Sebastian in the back with an improvised ice pick.

Said Orceo: “There will be drug tests for the inmates to determine if there was really a drug session at that time. We will then know which version is more credible.”

BuCor officer in charge Rolando Asuncion, meanwhile, told reporters in a separate interview that they had already subjected the other inmates at Building 14 to drug testing although the results have yet to be released.

Orceo also reported that BuCor officials were checking the footage taken by closed circuit television cameras inside the NBP to determine what happened.

However, Asuncion said he had only seen stills of the footage. He refused to disclose what he had seen and told reporters that he would leave it to the CIDG to review the footage “to avoid coming out with different versions of the story.”

According to Orceo, they were not discounting the possibility that the incident could be an off-shoot of the ongoing investigation of the House of Representatives into De Lima’s purported role in the illegal drug trade at the NBP during her term as DOJ secretary.

In a press conference after the alleged riot, De Lima said a source had told her that the Cos and Sy were being pressured to testify against her.

The Inquirer learned yesterday that as of 1 p.m., Sebastian, Peter Co and Sy were in stable condition at the Medical Center Muntinlupa.  With Dexter Cabalza