Faeldon wants to dismantle prison gangs, to dialogue with leaders on Thursday
Credit to Author: NEIL JAYSON SERVALLOS| Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2018 11:59:15 +0000
THE Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) will hold a dialogue on Thursday among leaders of criminal gangs inside the national penitentiary in a move to weed out corruption and put a stop to illegal activities inside the compound, its head Nicanor Faeldon said.
Faeldon said the agency would start by dismantling groups like Commando, Sigue-Sigue Sputnik and Oxo “to weaken them” and reduce their members to “ordinary individual criminals.”
“The criminal gangs have evolved into criminal syndicates and they run the criminal activities in the streets. They have a network so powerful… that is why they can do illegal activities like selling of illegal drugs and kidnapping,” he said.
The BuCor had long been ruled by the inmates because of the power they have acquired through criminal and illegal activities, and to put a stop to it, the agency has to restrain its leaders––the central nerve of the gangs, Faeldon said.
The BuCor chief said convicts Herbert Colanggo and Jaybee Sebastian, both implicated in the alleged drug trade inside the NBP that resulted in charges against Senator Leila de Lima, were two of the most prominent gang leaders.
“They can freely organize activities… they even have couriers of messages going to the streets,” he said.
The existence of gangs inside the national penitentiary is a perennial indication of the BuCor’s failure to fulfill its mandate of transforming inmates, Faeldon admitted.
“Every day we allow the harboring, nurturing of a criminal organization, its members and its activities. I wonder why we allow the existence of such gangs, for these gangsters to evolve,” he said.
The BuCor is also planning to shuffle around 19,000 NBP inmates who are members of criminal gangs and are grouped by dormitories.
“Kung i-mix natin sila, mahihirapan silang magplano,” he said.
(If we mix them, then they will find it difficult to plan.)
Faeldon said he would require the gang leaders to “burn the names of their gangs” in front of all BuCor officials to mark the end of gangs inside the NBP.
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