MANILA, Philippines - A religious group regularly visits the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) to preach love and hope to inmates – and offer women and illegal drugs on the side, according to reports reaching Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

“We have found out some of the possibly religious personnel who were conducting preaching inside the penitentiary have been used to bring drugs as well as prostitutes inside the penitentiary,” Aguirre said, citing information he received from a member of a non-government organization and three NBP guards who visited him recently.

The DOJ secretary said they are still checking the veracity of the information, including reports the group has a chapel inside the NBP complex in Muntinlupa.

He expressed belief the informants were not referring to NBP chaplain Monsignor Roberto Olaguer.

The group’s leader – widely known at the NBP as pastor – would usually visit the prison complex in the company of four or five women who are reportedly paid P4,000 to P5,000 for sex with inmates or NBP personnel.

Aguirre said members of the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF), who have been securing the NBP compound since July 20, have put a stop to the practice and have even barred religious groups from entering the compound and interacting with the prisoners.

The restrictions being enforced by the SAF guards are also meant to facilitate the ongoing search for illegal drugs and weapons at the NBP under Oplan Digmaang Droga spearheaded by Aguirre.

He could not say how long religious groups would be banned from the NBP.

The DOJ chief said he is eyeing the creation of a fact-finding committee to help the National Bureau of Investigation and the PNP get to the bottom of the illegal activities of religious sects at the NBP.

“It was as if it was the drug lords who were running (the NBP),” he pointed out while lamenting the lax security at the NBP.

Of the 54 inmates housed at Building 14 of the NBP, 19 are considered high-profile tenants. The latest addition to Building 14 was convicted car thief Raymond Dominguez, he added.

“Actually if you would look at this, it is like they are the boss… They are the ones dictating what will happen. The guards could not do anything or even the officers because based on our research, many of these NBP officers have been liquidated upon instructions given by the inmates to their contacts,” he said.

Poor equipment

There are several x-ray machines at the NBP which are no longer working, Aguirre revealed. He also accused two former “really” high-ranking DOJ officials of receiving protection money from rich inmates.

Aguirre refused to identify them as “it is unfair to them… We have to presume that they are innocent.”

“As a matter of fact, there is a conduct of investigation at the House of Representatives through the resolution filed by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez so they would like to know why drugs proliferated during the previous administration,” he added.

When asked if narco-politics has infiltrated the NBP, Aguirre said, “That is what we are afraid of. The drug lords have taken over the NBP because when we took over, the guards were not being respected. The high-profile inmates were the ones who were being respected, even by the officials. They are afraid of many these inmates.”

He maintained some NBP and DOJ personnel and officials have been pocketing millions at the expense of the inmates. But he stressed Bureau of Corrections chief Ricardo Rainier Cruz III did not have any derogatory record.

The DOJ chief also cited anomalies in the granting of food allowances to convicts.

He said unscrupulous NBP personnel would deduct P10 from prisoners’ daily allowance of P50.

“Since there are 24,000 inmates that would easily be P240,000 a day, which they divide among themselves,” the DOJ chief added.

Aguirre said during the first week of Oplan Digmaan Droga – from July 20 to 26 – the search yielded a total of P1.6 million in cash, 80 bladed weapons, 12 ice picks, a caliber .38 pistol, six improvised shot guns, 152 cellular phones, 62 mobile phone chargers, six sachets of suspected shabu, one plastic of suspected marijuana and 48 television sets.

“This is just the first barrage in our war on drugs. We will pursue President Duterte’s mandate to us to wage war on drugs, criminality and corruption with dogged determination and we shall marshal all the power and the resources at our disposal to eradicate these problems,” he said.

“We are prepared to go as long as three months for SAF to be in charge, and once we can no longer find any contraband goods then our agreement with the PNP is that we would rotate them with the Philippine Marines,” he added.