A technologically advanced pair of full-body scanners are now in operation at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP), which can detect all sorts of contraband hidden in and on the body without performing manual strip searches, announced the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).
The Soter RS full-body scanners can expose anything ingested, concealed under one’s clothes, or in their private regions.
“We have decided to deploy these body scanners, the first in the Philippines, initially at the entrance of the National Headquarters’ Administrative Building, and the Inmate Visiting Services Unit of the Maximum-Security Camp in New Bilibid Prison. This will eliminate the need for strip searches and manual cavity checks on visitors of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs),” BuCor Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. stated.
“We plan to procure additional scanners for deployment across our prisons and penal farms nationwide,” he added.
Strip and cavity searches were administered following a marginal rise in visitor attempts to smuggle unauthorized items like phones, chargers, tobacco, and illegal drugs—tucked somewhere in their bodies—into penal institutions.
These were halted by the BuCor head in May, however, as the agency had received complaints from two PDLs’ wives. It prompted a review of the procedure alongside the Commission on Human Rights.
In line with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s mandate for a heightened, “bloodless” war on drugs, Catapang said BuCor is taking severe measures against illegal drugs.
It was determined by top brass officials Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief General Rommel Francisco Marbil, and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Virgilio Lazo that the top source of the drug trade remains within the “Muntinlupa jail.”
Hence it was decided that around 200 high-profile PDLs at the NBP in Muntinlupa City are to be relocated into a new maximum security facility “somewhere in the Philippines.”
From July 21, 2023 to October 12, 2024, 1,806 prisoners were moved from the NBP to the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Mindoro, according to official reports. Among these were 170 Chinese nationals mainly connected to drug-related cases.
Catapang also pointed out that 70 to 80 percent of the PDLs numbering over 52,000 across the nation were incarcerated due to drug-related crimes.
