THE police official or officials who named the operation plan to rid jail facilities of contraband must be steeped in Greek mythology. They call it Joint Intel Project Cerberus. In Greek mythology, Cerberus is the multi-headed dog that guards the gate of Hades. Its common description according to Wikipedia: it has three heads, a serpent for a tail and snakes protruding from parts of the body.
Here’s how Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Debold Sinas explains the label:
“The first head is our joint coordination for the internal cleansing both with the PNP and their personnel. We conducted regular drug tests. Second, we are trying to neutralize contacts sa loob that’s why we have regular greyhounds similar in Mandaue and the provincial jail where their guards were not informed. And the third head is smart policing, where we are trying to seek support to install hi-tech jammers to prevent the coordination of drug transactions inside jails through cellular phones.”
The truth is, the smuggling of contraband inside our jails is an age-old problem. On this, I am reminded of the wisdom of Yolly Brown, the Muntinlupa veteran who was feared by even the “mayor de mayores” of the old Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC). Yolly Brown was brown-skinned, short and of regular build and had the image a snake tattooed around his legs.
Some prisoners had at that time of my incarceration there tried to escape by clambering up the lumber placed against the concrete part of the wall and onto the mesh wire that had cut segments stretched into a hole. They jumped back into the yard when the jail guard started firing, except for one who managed to drop into the sidewalk of the street outside where the jail guards were waiting.
“Sir, ayaw lang na patya among kausa.” Yolly Brown reportedly pleaded with the jail warden. “Ang trabaho sa piniriso mao man gyud ang pagpangitag higayon nga makaikyas, sama sad sa trabaho sa jail guard nga mao sad ang pagsiguro nga way makaikyas.” The escapee, though, couldn’t escape time from the bartolina.
The same goes with the smuggling of contraband. Prisoners will always attempt that and the function of jail officials is to ensure that wouldn’t happen. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that is normal in a jail. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) lays down the policy and the strategy but the prisoners will always look for ways to go around them.
Shabu wasn’t yet the narcotics of choice among drug addicts and drug peddlers when I was jailed in 1987. Marijuana was. I befriended a fellow prisoner who was jailed for illegal possession of marijuana. What was ironic was that marijuana was sold inside the old BBRC for, if I remember it right, P1.50 per stick. I would point that out to my friend and laugh.
Thus I wasn’t surprised when I first heard reports that the selling of shabu was rampant inside our jails. What caught me off guard were stories that jailed drug lords continued to do their thing inside our detention centers. It came to a point that somebody I knew was even the one sending money to his family instead of him receiving it from his family.
Let us see how Joint Intel Project Cerberus will play out.