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| Senator Leila de Lima |
Solicitor-General Jose Calida has questioned her efforts in putting a stop to the illegal drug activites inside the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP), while she was the secretary of the Department of Justice and the issue was under her administrative control.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) was also under her operational control. However, she wasn’t able to give emphasis on the campaign against drugs and crime but instead used the bureau to file cases regarding the pork barrel scam of senators and congressmen who were against the Aquino administration.
De Lima served as the DOJ secretary for more than five years but there was no crackdown operations to take down the drug lords inside the NBP who are living like kings inside their hotel-type quarters and who are still dealing drugs through their laptops and phones with strong Wi-Gi signal.
However, with the help of the PNP-Special Action Force, the ‘condotel’ of the drug lords inside the penitentiary was discovered during the second semester of 2015.
That incident made De Lima serious about running for the senate and about the crackdown operations for the drugs lords who were then transferred to NBI detention facilities. Their ‘condotel’, meanwhile, was being demolished, including their expensive appliances, bathtubs, and high-calibre guns.
Despite this, there were no cases filed against high officials and jailguards in the NBP who are responsible for the VIP treatment of the drug lords like Herbert Colangco, who was able to establish a recording studio inside the NBP compound.
Perhaps this is the reason behind the disagreement of Senators Panfilo Lacson and Richard Gordon to the investigation on the series of killings of alleged drug pushers. Almost 103 have been killed, while 5,845 have been arrested since May 10 until July 3 according to the data of PNP.
It’s also not a far-fetched idea if current DOJ secretary Vitaliano Aguirre will conduct and investigation on the VIP treatment of drug lords inside the NBP.
