200 'high-value' NBP inmates to be transferred to new facility

MANILA – Around 200 high-profile inmates at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City will be transferred to a new "maximum security facility," Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said Tuesday.

In a Palace press briefing, Remulla said the new facility where the high-value Bilibid detainees will be sent is "somewhere in the Philippines."

This developed after Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Virgilio Lazo, in a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, identified that the "number one source of drug trade is apparently still inside the Muntinlupa jail."

"They are taking proactive steps para ialis na 'yung mga (to transfer the) high-value detainees sa loob (inside) Muntinlupa and setting up a maximum security facility somewhere in the Philippines. I think the operation will start pretty soon and we should see a marked difference in the war against drug(s) in the Philippines," Remulla said.

"Evidently there's something wrong within the system and changing the [NBP] personnel is not the answer. We have to change the location, change their availability, change their accessibility para 'yung (so the) communication sa (with the) outside world is curtailed."

Remulla stressed that despite efforts to stop the drug trade within the NBP, around 200 high-profile inmates are "still active from their interceptive communications and intelligence briefings."

He said NBP personnel, including jail guards and supervisors, are being investigated because of the latest developments.

Remulla said the government intends a technology that would help stop the high-profile inmates' "communications with the outside world."

He said the high-value detainees will be transferred soon.

"It will be the most secure facility yet built and 'yung (their) communication lines nila will be totally cut," he added. "It's breaking the culture inside the Muntinlupa." (PNA)