ILOILO City – Two women jail visitors were arrested.
They tried to smuggle mobile phones into the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology’s (BJMP) Iloilo City District Jail – Male Dormitory in Barangay Ungka, Jaro district.
Grace Doromal, 48, and Cheryll Cuagon, 42, were taken to the Jaro police station on Jan. 7. Both were residents of this city.
According to Jail Superintendent Mary Chanette Espartero, warden, first to be arrested was Cuagon, at around 1:45 p.m.
Cuagon was visiting her live-in partner Chrtistian Alaban, a drug suspect. The phone was tucked in the back pocket of her trousers and was discovered by the jail guard frisking her.
On the other hand, Doromal was visiting son Jason Tribunal who was arrested last December 2019 in Barangay Legaspi, City Proper. The phone, wrapped in a handkerchief, was discovered at around 1:49 p.m.
“We are very thorough in frisking jail visitors,” said Espartero.
Inmates need not keep mobile phones in their cells; if they want to contact family members the jail facility has a phone they could use, she stressed.
This was not the first time Cuagon was caught trying to sneak items into the facility. She was previously caught with playing cards, said Espartero.
BJMP regulations disallow mobile phones in jails. Visitors must leave them outside the facility.
Doromal and Cuagon face a charge of violation of Regulation Ordinance No.2018-05, an ordinance prohibiting the unauthorized bringing in of cellular phones, handsets, and other gadgets or devices of similar nature within the premises of the BJMP which includes, but not limited to, its detention and facilities and places where it is possible to transfer possession of cellular phones and similar gadgets to any inmate./PN
