This jail guard who shoved and allegedly threw a punch at a former Quezon City lawmaker who tried to talk to reporters during a recent Sandiganbayan appearance is turning out to be no ordinary jail officer.

According to Nosy Tarsee’s sources at the Quezon City Jail in Barangay Payatas, the guard, who has the rank of chief inspector, is described as the right-hand man of the facility’s lady warden, so tight with her that insiders have taken to calling him the “little warden.”

Sources say Chief Insp. C.O.V. has been given free rein to personally fetch and escort visitors of high-profile inmates, a courtesy that conveniently keeps other guards from inspecting or frisking visitors who might be carrying in something for favored PDLs (persons deprived of liberty).

That arrangement, our sources say, may explain the eyebrow-raising results of a recent surprise drug test at the facility, where 130 PDLs turned up positive, a number that suggests illegal drugs are not just circulating inside but flowing in with some regularity, and with help.

It doesn’t stop there. Whispers around the compound have it that Chief Insp. C.O.V. is also on the payroll of a jailed senator who, sources claim, has continued to enjoy perks and privileges well above what his confinement would allow — courtesy, they say, of the previous warden and now this “little warden.”

Curiously, the same guard’s name keeps surfacing whenever questions come up about who greenlights certain visitor lists, who waves through certain deliveries, and who looks the other way when high-value inmates want a little extra comfort.

Jail officials have yet to publicly explain the special access C.O.V. reportedly enjoys, or why regular visitor-search protocols seem to bend for him alone.

Now add the shoving match with the former QC lawmaker, caught trying to speak to media outside a Sandiganbayan hearing, and the picture that emerges is of a guard who feels untouchable, protected from above and unafraid to get physical with outsiders who ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.

The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology might want to take a harder look at who’s really running the show at Payatas — the warden on paper, or her self-appointed deputy in uniform.