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Thursday, February 17, 2005
Warden denies allegations
By Edmund Sestoso and Maricar Aranas
DUMAGUETE City Jail Warden Chief Inspector Waldemar Villanueva denied accusations by inmates of the city's detention and rehabilitation center of alleged abuses and mismanagement.
The inmates raised their complaints in a signed petition circulating in different major offices in the province including those of Dumaguete City Mayor Agustin Perdices, Governor George Arnaiz, Investigator Jesus Canete of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Negros Oriental, and Regional Trial Court (RTC) Executive Judge Araceli Alafriz.
Also given copies were the provincial office of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the national office of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penalogy (BJMP).
Villanueva said the petition could have been prompted by his decision to replace inmate Diego Magusara with Joel Rebutaso as prison governor.
A prison governor supervises the enforcement of rules and regulations in each of the nine cells of the city jail to prevent internal troubles.
The warden explained that Magusara had not been effective and could not control the prisoners.
In an undated petition, 195 inmates in the jail's nine cells said the warden was incompetent and had ignored their grievances.
The signatories complained of sanitation, maltreatment
The inmates moreover blamed the warden for the death of two inmates, Benjie and Macario Tanron, in August last year, allegedly because he refused to bring them to the hospital on the ground that there was no court order.
In another instance when there was a court order, the petitioners said Villanueva refused to bring an inmate out because there was no jail guard to escort them.
On the other hand, the inmates said, the warden through a court order allowed an inmate believed to be friendly to him to visit the wake of a dead relative but with no escort.
Their food, they said, were not fit for animals to eat.
"Wala mi mag-apas nga daghan ug abunda among pagkaon, ang pagkatinuod usa ka gamayng bulad ug usa ka takos nga mais nga laum, ang amo ra ang ensakto nga pagkaon," said the complainants.
The petitioners accused the warden of tolerating jail guard Joseph Bato in physically abusing several inmates.
They cited one incident in July last year when Bato pointed his gun to inmate Ryan Arbon and on September 16 also last year when the guard hit the back of inmate Bernard Pinili with a weed cutter.
(February 17, 2005 issue)
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