CORRECTIONS Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. yesterday said more than 4,000 inmates in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City will be transferred to the Davao Prison and Penal Farm (DPPF) before the end of 2023 as part of the Bureau of Corrections’ (BuCor) effort to decongest the national penitentiary.
Catapang said the BuCor is fast-tracking the construction of facilities at the DPPF to accommodate the Bilibid inmates.
Construction of the P288.8 million-worth facilities started in December 2020 and was supposed to be completed in August last year, but the BuCor said last month that only 84.77 percent had been completed.
“At least 1,000 persons deprived of liberties have been transferred to Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Palawan and Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Mindoro as part of the current thrust in decongesting the NBP and another 4,150 PDLs will be transferred to Davao Prison and Penal Farm upon completion by the end of this year of the new facilities being constructed there,” the BuCor chief said.
The transfer of the Bilibid inmates to the Iwahig and Sablayan penal colonies took place last month.
The NBP, according to Catapang, has a capacity of only 6,435 inmates but as of June this year, its population is already 30,701, or a 477 percent occupancy rate and 377 percent congestion rate.
The building and upgrading of regional prison facilities and the transfer of heinous crime convicts to high -tech prison facilities inside three military reservation camps in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao are part of the overall thrust of the BuCor and the Department of Justice to decongest the prison system.
Also part of the decongestion process at the national penitentiary, Catapang said BuCor has already released 5,602 inmates from November 2022 to August 2023.
The released inmates gained their freedom either through completion of maximum sentence, parole or pardon and acquittals.
In another development, Catapang also said that under the BuCor’s “Oplan Baklas” undertaking, 2,812 “kubols” (huts) have been dismantled, mostly in the NBP.
He said the kubols are not luxury huts similar to those built during previous BuCor administrations, which were used exclusively by influential and moneyed inmates.
He said the dismantled kubols were makeshift dividers made of plywood that the inmates constructed these to have a little privacy and create additional space.
Likewise, Catapan said 3,292 various types of contrabands, including eight firearms with ammunition and one fragmentation grenade, have been seized or recovered from NBP inmates.
Also recovered or voluntarily turned over by inmates were 804 improvised weapons, 252 mobile phones, 180 other electronic devices, nine sachets of suspected shabu and cash money amounting to P149, 743.
Catapang said the cellular phones were turned over by the BuCor to the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) for digital forensic examination while the shabu were submitted to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
On the other hand, the cash money was turned over to the agency’s Camp Evidence Custodian for safekeeping.
