NBP restores visit rights of inmates

MANILA, Philippines - The New Bilibid Prison has restored the visitation rights of inmates detained at the NBP’s maximum security compound, a prison official said yesterday.

NBP Superintendent Richard Schwarzkopf Jr. said the immediate families of the inmates are allowed to visit them from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. from Thursday to Sunday.

“The visitation right is exclusive to family members,” he said.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima suspended the visitation privileges following a grenade explosion that killed an inmate and wounded 19 others on Jan. 8.

Earlier, more than a thousand people, mostly wives of NBP inmates, held demonstrations to demand the restoration of the visitation rights.

Schwarzkopt said activities of the inmates in the nine-hectare prison facility have returned to normal.

He said leaders of several gangs at the maximum security compound are helping in the enforcement of jail regulations.

Prison authorities had just concluded a search of the maximum security compound when an unidentified inmate lobbed a fragmentation grenade at the dormitory of the Commando Gang.

Probers from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) earlier said that convicted drug lord Jaybee Sebastian, leader of the gang, was the target of the grenade attack.

Sebastian, who was excluded from the series of raids conducted by authorities at the national penitentiary, was unharmed in the explosion.

The NBI has filed murder and frustrated murder charges against six inmates tagged in the explosion.