THE Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) chief believed that with all the ongoing construction of jail facilities nationwide, the high congestion rate in detention facilities will be solved two to three years from now.
BJMP Chief Jail Director Deogracias Tapayan said during Rehabinasyon: The First National Anti-Drugs Summit at Marco Polo Davao on Monday, February 5, that this year, they were given P2.9 billion for the construction of jail facilities to decongest the existing facilities.
Last year, P1.9 billion was earmarked for building construction to address overpopulation inside the jail.
“My projection is two to three years from now our congestion problem will be solved granting that the jail population will not increase as drastic as before. The trend now is pababa na ang jail population and we have so many construction and two to three years from now, matatapos na ang construction namin,” Tapayan said.
Based on his presentation, as of January 31 there are a total of 137,105 inmates in different BJMP facilities across the country, with a 442 percent congestion rate. Of this number, 98,540 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) are facing drug related cases.
“Way back in October 2017, our congestion rate is 634 percent. We were able to tone it down,” he said.
He also thanked the government for giving them 320 transport vehicles and for increasing their personnel to 2,000 this year compared to only 500 in the previous years. With these, they are able to properly secure the jail facilities as well as the inmates.
For their Oplan Linis Piitan, as of January 29 they have covered around 419 operational jails, 127 of which are certified drug-free jail facilities while 249 have certificates of “no illegal drugs confiscated” during the joint Greyhound Operations issued by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
From January to December 2018, BJMP had conducted a total of 47,131 regular greyhound operations in different detention facilities nationwide. Greyhound operation by other law enforcement agencies numbered to 2,868, totaling to 49,999 greyhound ops all in all.
During these operations, there were 125 sachets of shabu recovered; 2,575 drug paraphernalia; seven marijuana sticks; 4,014 cigarette packs; 18,183 deadly weapons; 291 liquors; 2,597 cellular phones/gadgets; and P3.75 million money inside the jail facilities.
There were also a total of 624 visitors apprehended for attempting to sneak in contrabands.
For their internal cleansing effort, of the 22,949 BJMP personnel who underwent drug testing, three turned out positive; while for the inmates, 43 percent or 61,403 persons deprived of liberty have undergone drug testing and of this number 29 were found positive of drug use.