A jail guard of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City has been dismissed from the service after his arrest during an illegal drugs buy-bust operation conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Parañaque City.
Dismissed by Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Gregorio Pio P. Catapang Jr. was Corrections Officer 1 Paul Patrick O. Toledo who was assigned at the NBP's maximum-security compound.
Toledo was arrested together with Reynold Teodoro, a security guard, and Romeo T. Guerrero, a truck driver, in Skate Park, Bulungan, Paranaaque City.
Confiscated from them were 10 kilos of suspected shabu with a street value of P68 million, a pistol with eight live ammunitions, identification cards, official receipts, two cellphones, two wallets, one piece genuine P1,000 bill on top of bundles of boodle money used in buy bust operation, and two vehicles.
Catapang said that the arrest of Toledo only made BuCor strengthen its resolve to flush out and unmask corrections officers involved in illegal activities.
"As I said before, we will not condone misfits in our agency as we intensify our efforts to cleanse the bureau of misguided personnel who refuse to heed our call for them to mend their ways and change for the better," he said.
In April last year, BuCor signed a memorandum of agreement with the PDEA, National Bureau of Investigation, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, and the Philippine National Police to synchronize their anti-illegal drug efforts with the creation of an Inter-Agency Collaborative Group (IACG) against drug trafficking, which is already operational within BuCor facilities.
Catapang said that BuCor has been working closely with PDEA to ensure that all personnel and visitors of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) arrested for smuggling illegal drugs inside the penology were turned over to them for proper investigation and disposition, including the confiscated illegal drugs and cellphones for forensic examination and analysis.