By Joel M. Sy Egco

MANY drug traffickers in jail are a pampered lot, with some even able to continue closing deals by cellular phone, an official said yesterday.

“In the Quezon City Jail alone, we have information that some Chinese inmates are being given special treatment,” said Vicente Sotto III, chairman of the state-run Dangerous Drugs Board.

“We were told they could even deal through the phone and have a refrigerator there on the second floor of the building.”

Sotto made the statement as he defended his bid to reinstate the death penalty on convicted drug traffickers. The Philippines removed the death penalty in 2006 as a result of Church and international pressure.

Sotto singled out the Quezon City Jail as one of many that gives preferential treatment to convicted drug pushers—particularly Chinese nationals.

“Wherever they are jailed, they can still go about doing their trade,” he said.

But he said the ultimate punishment should be reserved for the worst offenders, while users should be rehabilitated instead of punished.

An official of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology confirmed that about 20 jailed Chinese nationals were holed up in one room on the second floor of the Quezon City Jail.

“They were placed inside one cell, and we find that irregular because they should be locked up in separate cells,” the official said.

“It is a VIP room.”

On Thursday, Sotto and Dionisio Santiago, director general of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, called for the return of the death penalty on drug convicts because they were a “security concern.”

Santiago said the jail system also needed improvement.

“There is still a lot of human intervention, and that’s where the problem begins,” he said.

“Jail officials can interpret a lot of things in a lot of ways,” Santiago said without elaborating.