INMATES of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) turned over 184 cellphones, while police jail guards confiscated 50 others during an inspection last Thursday.
In turn, Gov. Hilario Davide III restored their visitation privileges, which had been suspended last Aug. 9 after the escape of inmate Arnel Mait.
Inmates will once again be allowed to receive visitors starting on Sept. 5. However, physical contact will not be allowed. They will have to talk through a screen in 13 separate cubicles.
Conjugal visits will be allowed but only for those who are legally married or who can produce a marriage certificate.
Inmates are allowed visitors Mondays to Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
They have 30 minutes for each visit, conjugal or otherwise.
Inmates in isolation have no visitation privileges.
Warning
Acting warden Roberto Legaspi held a press conference with Senior Insp. Zosimo Jabas where they revealed that they gave the inmates an ultimatum: surrender their cellphones and other gadgets by 5 p.m. last Thursday or risk losing their visiting privileges altogether.
The cellphones started to pile up at the facility’s quadrangle before the end of the day.
Legaspi said anyone caught with contraband after the 5 p.m. deadline will face sanctions, and that will include everyone in the cell, even the “mayor,” or cell leader.
They will lose their visitation and conjugal privileges, Legaspi said.
Jabas admitted that the inmates have good hiding places for contraband.
Lito Granada, the overall commander of CPDRC’s inmates, said that what the jail guards see is what they seize. Items that are well hidden are spared, he said.
Granada could not give a definite answer when asked if there were still cellphones out there.
He said he, too, is on the lookout for any contraband.
“Some inmates are stubborn. I already informed them that anyone caught with a cellphone or any other contraband will lose their visitation and conjugal privileges,” he said in Cebuano.
Meanwhile, Jabas said a team from the Provincial Public Security Company has been assigned to screen visitors and secure the facility’s perimeter fence.