Sato-san top

Armed police stormed New Bilibid Prison, the Philippines’ largest penitentiary, earlier this week after it was reported that inmates were living lives of debauchery despite being incarcerated for their respective crimes. Many of prisoners were found to be in possession of numerous luxury items and living in private “villas”, with police even uncovering a room built especially for strippers to perform.

Bilibid has been known to authorities for some time as a hotbed of corruption, but after reports that entire sections had been converted into veritable millionaires’ mansions by inmates believed to be trafficking drugs, police geared up and stormed the facility on Monday this week. What they found quickly became the subject of news reports around the globe.

Despite its notoriously overcrowded conditions, police discovered a number of semi-private residences within the facility, some even fitted with air-conditioning units and jacuzzi bathtubs. The raid also uncovered large amounts of narcotics and cash amounting to tens of thousands of dollars. Things got even spicier, however, when police stumbled upon rooms prepped with inflatable sex dolls and a “strip bar” where women from outside the prison would come to perform; the girls just a phone call or email away thanks to the multitude of mobile phones and web-connected computers found within the prison.

Australia’s ABC also writes that authorities discovered some of the inmates’ “villas” stocked with a selection of luxury brand whiskey and designer goods.

Secretary of Philippine Department of Justice Leila de Lima described Bilibid’s prisoners as “living like kings”; a term that news outlets were quick to echo in their reports. While I’d never wish to condone the behaviour of the inmates, as someone who comes from a country that still very much has a royal family, I can’t help thinking that the term “living like drug lords” might have been more accurate. After all, had the inmates genuinely been attempting to live a lifestyle akin to that of royalty, instead of surrounding themselves with drugs and Louis Vuitton, they’d have been better off spending their time being paraded through dreary towns and villages, waving at slack-jawed locals who can’t decide whether to cheer or accuse them of freeloading and pelt them with crudely constructed ballistics filled with vomit and and the tears of sad children.

And heck, if strippers and booze are all it takes to become royalty, I think it’s high time we at RocketNews24 declared our office building an independent nation. More red wine, Mr. Sato?

Source: Yahoo! Japan News
Feature image: RocketNews24