Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 26) – The head of detention of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) was sacked after a detainee who is a co-accused in the drug case of former Senator Leila De Lima was caught outside of the facility last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Monday.
On midnight of June 21, detainee Jad Dera, five NBI security officers, and one employee were found in a van outside the agency’s compound.
READ: DOJ vows heads will roll after detainee found outside NBI detention facility
“Yung security officer, head of detention ng NBI, ay sinibak na po [The security officer, NBI head of detention, has been relieved],” DOJ spokesperson Mico Clavano said.
The agency said it was investigating the scope of the incident to determine if other officials were involved, and that the detention center chief was a person of interest.
Meanwhile, the DOJ is eyeing Dera’s transfer to another facility after it was found that he had paid the NBI detention center personnel who were caught escorting him on June 21 sums “in the hundreds of thousands” for certain privileges.
“Marami po siyang privileges sa detention center ng NBI na hindi naman pwede ganun yung trato sa isang detainee kagaya po ng pagkain, kagaya po ng sleeping conditions, lahat po ito. Nalaman po natin na nababayaran po ng ating detainee na si Jad Dera, unacceptable po ito,” Clavano said.
[Translation: He had a lot of privileges in the NBI detention center that can’t be tolerated for detainees such as food, sleeping conditions, all of these. We learned he was paying for these and this is unacceptable.]
The DOJ said that Dera was a “mayores” or a high-ranking prisoner within the facility, which could be a reason he was allowed special privileges.
“We would like to curtail this and stop this practice by moving him from one detention center to another dahil po sinasabi po natin dati pa na yung familiarity with the detention center exposes some risks [because we think that familiarity with the detention center exposes some risks],” Clavano added.
He said that the agency also asked Bureau of Corrections Chief Gregorio Catapang to investigate if there were similar schemes within BuCor facilities.
