THE New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City and the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City will be transferred to a new facility in Palawan, Bureau of Corrections Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. said yesterday.
Catapang announced this during a ceremony marking the agency’s 119th founding anniversary.
“We will close down the maximum, minimum and medium (facilities) and we will transfer it to Palawan,” Catapang said, adding the two will be known as NBP Palawan and CIW Palawan.
Catapang said the NBP and CIW correctional facilities will be located inside the 27, 000-hectare Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm.
A portion of the facility is part of the proposed Philippine Economic Zone Authority.
He did not specify a timeline but said preparations are underway.
The proposed Palawan PEZA Zone, according to Catapang, will feature not only industrial and business establishments but also an international airport twice the size of Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
“Palawan will become not only a penal institution. It will become a PEZA zone,” he said.
He also disclosed plans to transform the 300-hectare Bilibid complex in Muntinlupa into a “Bucor Global City,” with 100 hectares devoted to a government center.
“South of Metro Manila, we will create the BuCor Global City. As we vacate this area, we envision it as a vast, open space larger than Luneta Park in Manila,” he said, adding that Luneta Park covers only 65 hectares.
The BuCor and its mother agency, the Department of Justice, have made known their plans to close the NBP before 2028 and transfer inmates to other prison and penal farms in the provinces
Last May, Catapang said the 15-hectare CIW facility would be closed before the end of Marcos administration in 2028 and inmates will be farmed out to several penal colonies outside of Metro Manila.
As of last year, the CIW has an inmate population of 3,297 though its capacity is only for 1,008, resulting in a 230 percent congestion rate
Catapang said the move is part of the overall plan of the BuCor to decongest its prison facilities by building regional prisons and the transfer of heinous crime convicts to high-tech prison facilities inside three military reservation camps in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
