Intel report: convicts behind major crimes

One in five big crimes countrywide involve influential convicts, according to a high-level government report.

Among the daring crimes are the Pangasinan bank robbery in Feb. 2013, the assassination of NBI special agent John Herra in Apr. 2013, and the kidnapping of a Chinese national in Sta. Mesa, Manila, in Jun. 2014.

The high-profile crimes are hatched inside several “kubol” (Tagalog for temporary shelter) of influential maximum-security convicts at the National Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa City, south of Manila. They are able to pull it off because protected by Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officials, police colonels, and politicos.

A police-military composite intelligence team compiled the report for Malacañang last July. The paper not only identified the influential convicts, coddling officials, and syndicated crimes, but also proposed several courses of action.

One of the recommendations was to untangle the convicts’ headlock of BuCor officials. This led to last week’s raid – belated though – of the NBP.

Headed by Justice Sec. Leila de Lima and BuCor director-general Franklin Bucayu, NBI raiders discovered in separate kubol an assault rifle and four handguns, and a lab to make “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride).

Also in several kubol were luxury facilities and items: giant TV sets and split-type air-conditioners in every room, a sauna, a jacuzzi, an office with wifi connection, a music recording studio with high-end equipment and power generator, multimillion-peso cash, money-counting machines, vaults, laptops, projectors, smart phones, nine dress watches, and a sex doll.

De Lima summarily sacked NBP warden Supt. Robert Rabo, his deputy Supt. Celso Bravo, and immediate past warden Supt. Denario Tesoro, only recently assigned to the Davao Penal Colony.

The term “kubol” masks reality. Far from being makeshift, they are gated, high-fenced, concrete bungalows, classier than the BuCor chief’s cottage nearby, the intelligence report stated.

Noted too was one special kubol that has CCTV cameras to monitor the approach of prison guards, and a private gate to let in criminal transactors and visitors any time of day or night. Civilian outsiders guard it round the clock, and prison officials may not enter without permission from the gang lord-occupant.

The kubol began a decade ago as just one, to accommodate the status of then-congressman Romeo Jalosjos, who was convicted for child rape. Then, other rich convicts built their own kubol, at first claiming those to be chapels but actually for sexual entertainment. Today there are more than a dozen, the report revealed. The gang lord had the newer ones built in 2012 for Chinese nationals convicted for narco-trading, who paid him P50 million for the favor.

Past BuCor directors had allowed the kubol system for maximum-security life termers supposedly as part of their rehabilitation from heinous crime. It apparently does not work, as the bungalows are covers for continued felony.

The intelligence report enumerated large-scale crimes: (1) narco-trafficking, (2) bank robbery, (3) kidnapping for ransom, (4) murder-for-hire of prominent persons, (5) illegal gambling, (6) protection racket, and (7) money laundering.

The gang lord and other hardened convicts run the syndicates, sometimes as confederates, other times as competitors. The gang lord became so influential because of official designation by high officials of the Dept. of Justice and BuCor.

The Chinese nationals continue their illicit drug trade under the gang lord’s protection, for huge fees. Part of the fees are remitted as payolas to officials. The officials are given no choice but to accept, lest their families be harmed.

The high-profile crimes are committed to demonstrate to newcomer officials, rich convicts, police and politician backers how influential the gang lord is.

Some of the kubol-dwellers have put up pawnshops in Mega Manila as cover for illegal gambling and to launder crime proceeds, particularly from narcotics, murder, and robbery.

While the intelligence report focused only on the NBP, police-military sources said it is possible that parallel syndicates are operating out of other major prisons, including in Tagum, Davao, and Iwahig, Palawan. Even jails for crime indictees while on trial can be used as crime covers.

The sources support the call of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines for officials to raid as well the detention cells of the Ampatuan massacre suspects. This is in the wake of the killings of witnesses against the suspected masterminds, the Ampatuan political dynasts of Maguindanao.

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