At least 93 percent of the inamtes under the custody of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) have already been vaccinated against the Covid-19.
JMP spokesperson Supt. Xavier Solda said the figure translates to a total of 122,777 out of the 131,708 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in the jail facilities supervised by the BJMP nationwide.
Solda said 104,256 or 79.16 percent of the PDLs were given booster injections while a total of 6,633 PDLs got their second booster shots.
“Mahalaga ho kasi ito 9Covid-19 vaccination) dahil yung mga PDl ho natin ongoing po ang trial. Kapag nakalaya ayaw ho natin silang maging problema pa ng mga community na tatangap sa kanila at yung mga babalikan nilang mga lugar kaya talagang sa facility pa lang pinababakuhan na po natin (This is very important because the trials of the PDL s are on-going. If they are released we do not want them to be the problem of the communities that will take them and the places where they are going to that is why we make sure that they are vaccinated in the facility),’’ Solda said.
Meanwhile, Solda said they are conducting strict security protocols to ensure that the ‘essential items’ given to the PDLs will be subjected to strict scrutiny. This, after Interior Sec. Benhur Abalos tasked the BJMP to ensure that the bureau's facilities must be free from illegal drugs.
“Kasi temporarily suspended pa yung visitation kasi marami kaming mga experience na yung mga bumibisita hinahalo sa pagkain yung iligal na droga (Visitation is temporarily suspended since based on experience visitors are concealing illegal drugs into the food given to the PDLs),’’ he noted.
Solda admitted that the BJMP has to expand its inter-agency collaboration with the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
“In fact 262 of our jail facilities were declared drug free and 40 were declared drug cleared and ito po yung gusto naming itaas pa hanggang sa lahat ng mga facilities natin maicertify natin na drug free and drug cleared (we want to level up to the point where all our facilities are certified as drug-free and drug-cleared),’’ he noted.
The BJMP spokesperson also recognized the importance of the BJMP’s intelligence gathering system which is now the prime focus of the bureau. (Chito A. Chavez)