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COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE
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REP. OAMINAL.

(Continuing)to gain popularity in aid of election or,

perhaps, to gain leverage for negotiation with the drug lords operating within the
NBP? And why is it that cellular phones, supposedly prohibited and which is the
means by which the illegal drug trade is facilitated, continue to be confiscated from
the inmates?
Again, we come down to the crux of this issue. Why were we unable to stop
such flagrant defiance of our laws inside a government institution and manned by
employees of the government, nonetheless?

Instead, the situation has become so

dire that our Special Action Rorce troopers, the crme de la crme of our law
enforcement units, have been tasked with guarding the NBP.
It is in this regard that we have invited today the Executive Branch,
particularly the Secretary of Justice, Honorable Vitaliano Aguirre under whose
jurisdiction the Bureau of Corrections and NBP fall under, along with the heads of
other agencies involved in combatting illegal drugs such as the PDEA, one of his
representatives of Director General Lapea, who is on official travel, the able,
energetic Director of NCR, Director Wilkins Villanueva, who had accomplished in
padlocking so many shabu laboratories recently and the Philippine National Police
who iswhose PNP Chief is represented here by General Magalong, in order to
enlighten us on the Dutertes administration efforts to address the issue of
proliferation of illegal drugs at the NBP.
As the Subcommittees Chair in charge of the correctional reforms, I believe
this investigation could help us craft legislation that will reform our prison system and
ensure that corruption and illegal drug trade are truly weeded out.
The House of Representatives, under the leadership of Speaker Alvarez,
through this Committee, is intent on finding out the truth.

Rest assured that we will

direct this investigation so that we may be more guided in our legislative actions. We
will be taking into account the possible structural, organizational and cultural
witnesses that allow the occurrence of illegal activities in our correctional institutions.
Of a particular interest would be whether the time is right to finally proceed
with plans to build a new prison facility in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija. According
to the International Center for Prison Studies, ICPS, in 2015, our prison system is the
mostis the fourth most overcrowded in the world.

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-------------------------This Committee, during the 16th Congress, upon the initiative of then Senior
Vice-Chair and now Majority Floor Leader Rodolfo Farias, had, in fact, proposed
this measure and the Department of Justice actually held a bidding for a publicprivate partnership to undertake this project. We must now ask also the Department
of Justice, through Secretary Aguirre, as to the status of this project.
The clamor of our people to thoroughly address the drugs issue has been
deafening. As representatives of the people who are duty-bound to do our part in
supporting President Duterte and the government efforts to address this crisis. We
now have a man at the helm who has staked his life, honor and the presidency in
order to accomplish the mandate given to him by the people. It is only proper that
this august Body, through the leadership of our dynamic Speaker Alvarez and the
rest of the Members of the Lower House, lend its hand in furthering the goal of
eliminating the threat of illegal drugs and upholding the peoples welfare.
We are conducting this investigation in our desire to correct this deplorable
aberration of our government institutions being at the mercy of individuals and
groups who defy the law with impunity.

We do this in our hope that those

responsible for the mess we are in today are held accountable and put to justice.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
THE CHAIRPERSON. Thank you, Vice-Chair Oaminal.
So, now, we will recognize the author of House Resolution 105, the
Honorable Minority Floor Leader Danny Suarez.
REP. DANILO E. SUAREZ. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee on Justice,
Secretary Aguirre, distinguished resource persons, Your Honors.
When I was Minority Leader during the 15th Congress, I already pointed out
during our weekly Minority press conferences, the pandemic in the making which is
the proliferation of drugs and its allied ill-effects to society. It is very unfortunate that
the then powers that be took no notice.
What is the result of the last six years under an administration which was
blind to the obvious drug proliferation in our country? According to 2015 data from
the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, PDEA, around one-fifth of barangay or
villages in the Philippines have drug-related cases; 92 percent of the barangays in
Metro Manila have drug-related cases. And what is painful about this data is that as

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-------------------------early as 2012, the United Nations worlds drug report said, the Philippines already
has the highest rate of shabu use in East Asia.
A 2012 study on drug trafficking by the Philippine Center for Transnational
Crime echoes this sentiment when it stated that a total of 6,020 barangays in the
country are drug infested. Clearly, Mr. Chairman, we were not lacking in knowledge
about the drug problem that early.
Mr. Chairman, while statistician can debate whether there is causality or not
between the rise in drug use in the country and the rise in criminality, I think it can be
safely concluded that there is indeed a direct correlation between the two.
According to the Philippine Statistics Office, the total reported crimes for 2014
was 1 million 161,188 as compared to 2 thousand(?) 17 thousand 812 in 2012. In
the same time span, index crime rose from 129,161 in 2012 to 492,772 in 2014.
In 2014, I was no longer surprised by the news that shocked the whole nation
when a raid operation in the New Bilibid Prison revealed that drug lords inside the
Maximum Security Compound live in a life of luxury. They have, as what mentioned
by the Vice-Chair, flat screen TVs, jacuzzis, refrigerators, cash, luxury watches, golf
carts, electric bikes, musical instruments and other prohibited contraband. These
drug lords had the audacity to operate a nationwide drug syndicate while supposedly
serving sentences for their crimes. Mr. Chairman, an operation this brazen could not
have happened without the approval of several government high officials.
When news broke out regarding the proliferation of drugs and the continued
operation of the drug lords inside Bilibid, I was expecting that the House would
conduct its inquiry in the matter. However, Im not aware of any action on the part of
the House to address this issue. Which is why, immediately after the start of the 17 th
Congress, I sought the help of the House leadership in order to determine the proper
course of action in line with the current administration drive against illegal drugs
which is, undeniably regardless of ones political affiliation, a real menace and threat
to the Filipino people.

One of the persons I approached is the current Majority

Leader Rudy Farias and he told me that he would ask for assistance from the
current Secretary of Justice to conduct a preliminary investigation on the matter.
Given this assurance, we filed House Resolution No. 105, entitled,
RESOLUTION CALLING FOR AN INVESTIGATION, IN AID OF LEGISLATION, ON

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THE PROLIFERATION OF DRUG SYNDICATE AT THE NATIONAL BILIBID

PRISON.
Through this investigation, I am hopeful that we will be able to address the
root of the drug problem inside the Bilibid Prison and we will determine who among
the government officials responsible, if any, are involved in the proliferation and trade
of illegal drugs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
(MS. EDITHA S. MORALES TOOK OVER)