Most expensive watering hole?
Though beer forms part of many cultures associated with social traditions, parties have no place in the jail facility mandated to safe keep, rehabilitate, and institute reforms on more than 28,000 inmates.
Daily TribuneThough beer forms part of many cultures associated with social traditions, parties have no place in the jail facility mandated to safe keep, rehabilitate, and institute reforms on more than 28,000 inmates.
How much are you willing to pay for a beer? The answers vary depending on the budget, the necessity to satisfy a beer craving, or a personal preference for a particular kind of the alcoholic drink made from grains, hops, yeast, and water.
Beer, they say, is one of the oldest and the world's most widely consumed alcoholic drinks. A fact that seems to hold even within the corners of the national penitentiary, ridiculously!
Personnel of the New Bilibid Prison, during an operation dubbed "Oplan Paglilinis" on 1 November, discovered a stash of more than 7,000 cans of Red Horse beer inside the prison compound, aside from improvised weapons and illegal drugs.
How the huge number of beer in cans made it inside the compound without being noticed is shady not unless the country's jail that holds hard-core prisoners is bereft of closed-circuit television cameras.
Consider that five relatives carry a can of beer when they visit an inmate in a day, it would take 1,502.4 days or a little more than four years to have all 7,512 cans of beer sneaked into the jail.
There is no other way. The thousands of canned beers may have been loaded onto a truck that delivered them to the NBP compound, or personnel could have had a hand in bringing them in.
Though beer forms part of many cultures associated with social traditions, parties have no place in a jail facility mandated to safe keep, rehabilitate, and institute reforms on more than 28,000 inmates.
Neither is the NBP a place to do business and trade. The huge stash is a source of millions of pesos because a can of beer, which costs only around P50 in the "liberated" society, is reportedly being sold for P1,000 inside the jail facility.
The 2,500 percent markup makes the NBP facility new "BiliBAR" prison — the most expensive watering hole in the country, even surpassing the prices of craft beers in budget-friendly resto-bars.
Unaware that a concert was previously hosted by a popular inmate at the maximum compound where beer and alcohol were sold like gold, Bureau of Corrections acting Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. said it was the first time that thousands of canned beers suspiciously made its way inside the jail.
Regardless, of whether it was the first, second, or nth time, the presence of prohibited items inside the prison cells deserves serious attention to meet rising concerns over the national government's capacity to implement reforms by reinforcing the ethics system against deceitful practices.
It's about time to deliver the message that the national government means business — not the sale of beers for P1,000 per can nor of mobile phones for P300,000 to half a million pesos per unit — but ensuring the efficient administration of criminal justice.