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Thursday, February 16, 2006
Editorials: BBRC warden’s plan
If Chief Insp. Efren Nemeño is really serious in his goal of straightening out the affairs at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC), then he is in for a rough ride.
Or call it an impossible goal, if you will.
Previous city jail wardens started off proclaiming almost similar intentions, only to end up failing and being unceremoniously booted out, with the difference only in the length of time taken before they ended up crashing to the ground.
Facing the test
Nemeño, though, should by now know the formidability of the task.
He has raised the possibility those opposed to his planned reforms are testing him, as evidenced by the recent escape of inmate Jessley Labra, who was able to flee the Cebu City Medical Center despite the presence of jail guards there.
The fear of sabotage is understandable because incompetent or corrupt jail officials won’t just change their easy ways or let go of their “earnings.”
Personnel, structure
The problem within BBRC is as much in the personnel as in the jail structure.
This is why nobody is contradicting the ranting of Mayor Tomas Osmeña against the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), which runs the jail.
In fairness to Nemeño, he indeed has started going after jail guards who sleep on the jobs or abandon their posts, but whether he can sustain it and be able to proceed to the more serious act of stopping, if not curbing corrupt practices, remains to be seen.
And Nemeño should do this while making do with a structure that is not only old but bursting at the seams with inmates, surely a difficult setup to manage.
New facility
Given the situation, the most that the Cebu City Hall can do, aside from looking over Nemeño’s shoulders is to speed up the completion of the new and bigger jail in Kalunasan so the inmates can already be transferred there.
Giving the BJMP a Kalabasa Award or criticizing jail officials can be a good starting point but in the end finding ways to finish the Kalunasan facility would be their bigger contribution to the effort to solve the BBRC problem.
Unfortunately, at least from the point of view of the public, BJMP and Cebu City officials seem to be taking their sweet time in effecting the inmates’ transfer.
Efforts at reform in the jail won’t work without the right environment for it.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 16, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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