JUSTICE Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla yesterday said the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) compound in Muntinlupa City will be converted into a government center once the plan to transfer its inmates to a prison facility in Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro is realized.
Remulla said the Sablayan Prison and Penal Colony (SPPC) is the most logical choice to house inmates from the national penitentiary, particularly those convicted for heinous crimes and are currently detained at the NBP’s maximum security compound, given its size and location.
The SPPC, which was established September 1954 by virtue of Proclamation No.72, has a total land area of 16,190 hectares. It is the nearest penal colony from Metro Manila operated by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).
The Sablayan penal facility is currently housing minimum security inmates.
Speaking at the Kapihan sa Manila forum, Remulla said converting the NBP area into a government center can be done by an order from the President.
“A presidential decree is enough to execute the plan,” he said.
Last month, Remulla said that even before he assumed the top DOJ post, he has already visited the SPPC to look at its facilities as a possible venue to house NBP inmates, especially those involved in large-scale drug trafficking and other heinous crimes.
Last January, the DOJ, under then secretary and now Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra, said the BuCor has created a task force to address the worsening congestion problem at the NBP, including reviving previous plans to transfer it to Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.
Then DOJ undersecretary Deo Marco said that aside from relocating the national penitentiary to Nueva Ecija, the BuCor was also pushing for the “regionalization” of its facilities, meaning every region will have a penal colony to decongest the national penitentiary.
Remulla said he will meet with Public Attorneys’ Office (PAO) chief Persida Rueda Acosta to tap the latter’s personnel to assist in the decongestion of BuCor’s prisons through the grant of pardons and paroles.
The DOJ chief said they need help to speed up the processing of the inmates’ petitions for pardon and paroles.
The PAO has over 2,000 lawyers, while the DOJ has only over 1,000.