The Philippine Drug Enforcement Administration (PDEA) has certified 307 Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) detention centers as “clean of illegal drugs.” The number represents 74.51 percent of the jail facilities under the management and control of BJMP.

OIC-Secretary Eduardo Año of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) credited the bureau’s intensified internal cleansing campaign for the big jump in the number of its jails certified free of drugs.

“The proliferation of illegal drugs in hundreds of prisons in the country has been an endemic issue which entails a lot of work and political will and for BJMP to produce positive output in less than a year, in a matter of months, is truly worth praising,” Año said.

“The numbers cannot lie. From 68 early this year, we now have 307 drug-free jails which can only be attributed to the relentless campaign of BJMP to keep up with the President’s vision of a country free from illegal-drugs,” he added.

The DILG chief commended the jail bureau’s chief, Deogracias C. Tapayan, for his leadership and consistency in carrying out their programs.

Año explained that for a jail facility to be marked drug-free, it has to comply with the standards and requirements set by agencies such as PDEA and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The BJMP manages jails for detainees with pending court cases while the Bureau of Corrections under former PNP Chief Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa controls penal colonies for persons already convicted of crimes like the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa.

During the past administration, the NBP stood at the vortex of accusations that high-profile inmates controled the drug trade outside prison walls with the help of some government officials.

Detained Sen. Leila de Lima is facing drug charges over accusations that as justice secretary she made money from the NBP drug trade through her driver-bodyguard Ronnie Dayan.