The amount of contraband confiscated recently by the acting chief of the Bureau of Corrections from the inmates of the New Bilibid Prison may be alarming to many, but to the jaded (myself included), it is nothing new and not even that much.

When I, as assistant secretary for local government of the Department of the Interior and Local Government in 2000, was concurrently designated "ombudsman" of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, I saw for myself how local jails have evolved into self-contained economies, with sari-sari stores and mini-theaters situated inside the jail compounds selling goods and services to inmates. I, of course, ordered them dismantled pronto, earning the ire of these said officials. They were, I am sure, only too happy that I resigned after the EDSA 2.

In 2013, after I have been in private practice for some time, I was referred by a friend to a prisoner inside the NBP. Since the prospective client obviously could not come to my office, I had to go to him. Imagine my surprise when arriving inside the NBP Compound, I was put onto a golf cart by a guard and driven to where the client was. En route, I was awed to see buildings inside the jail compound housing, among others, a mini grocery, a billiard hall, karaoke joints, restaurants, and — as I was later to find out — even a recording studio and a television station. A television station!
Inside the NBP!

As I reached the place where my client stayed, I was shocked — shocked! (To borrow a famous line from the movie Casablanca) — that it was a three-storey affair. On the ground floor was an office with five staff; on the second floor was a conference table for ten and, inside a separate room, an executive desk behind which sat my new client. Mind you, it was fully air-conditioned and had phone lines and a computer connected to the internet. On the third floor was the inmate's living quarters, decked out like a Makati condo.

Wonderstruck, I had to ask him — after the usual introductions — how all that was possible. He told me matter-of-factly that "here, everything is possible, as long as you fulfill your 'quota' for the secretary."

I learned later from other inmate-friends of his that they called the NBP "Little Las Vegas" for the easy availability of vices. You name it, you'll have it: alcohol, women for sexy shows (and, for the right price, a "conjugal visit); parties, gambling, the works. The price was that you had to "produce" for the higher-ups. Thus, were they compelled to deal drugs, the fastest way for them to make money.

Later, after a power play, 19 of these inmates would be exiled incommunicado to the National Bureau of Investigation compound along Taft Avenue. Their distraught relatives sought my assistance for them (and their lawyers) to gain access to them, which the NBI unlawfully refused upon orders from then Justice Secretary de Lima. They later came to be known as the "Bilibid 19". After a successful petition for a writ of amparo, I was to find out that they were put there because they wanted to expose the "rackets" inside the NBP which directly implicated De Lima.

The rest, as they say, is history. There was a much-publicized Congressional inquiry on the Bilibid drug trade, drug trafficking charges were filed against De Lima (then elected Senator) and she was arrested and jailed without bail, which was upheld by no less than the Supreme Court.

It seems that little has changed since then. Although on a much smaller scale, the lucrative business of smuggling contraband into the NBP lives on, even under this new administration.

Bilibid or not…