NEWLY appointed Bureau of Corrections chief Benjamin De Los Santos will push through with the modernization of the New Bilibid Prison, as he pursues the purging of national penitentiary of illegal drug trade and corruption.
After taking his oath of office before Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, De Los Santos, a retired police general who served at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, vowed to stamp out corruption, illegal drugs and criminal activities inside the NBP.
“I hope to clean it (NBP) up and, if necessary, exert drastic measures… Rest assured that we will not allow corruption among our ranks,” De los Santos told reporters.
According to him, the NBP modernization program, which has been pending since 2013, could be a major solution to the decades-long problems of corruption and illegal activities inside the penitentiary.
By building a new facility in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija, the BuCor director general said the NBP administration could better facilitate and monitor over 23,000 inmates currently serving sentences.
The new BuCor chief disclosed that the P142-billion project has been halted due to legal issues raised by private claimants in both the current NBP land in Muntinlupa and the property in Fort Magsaysay.
He noted that the current NBP facility was originally built to accommodate only 5,000 inmates, but the prison population has grown to 23,000.
With the modernization program comes better benefits for NBP jail guards and personnel, De Los Santos said.
“We aim to upgrade salaries of prison guards and put up a correctional academy where training will focus on security, administrative and rehabilitation competence of NBP personnel,” he added.
As to the drug trade inside the NBP, De Los Santos admitted that it would be really difficult to dismantle because of the well-entrenched hierarchy inside the NBP.
Nonetheless, the BuCor chief vowed to pursue the plan initiated by Sec. Aguirre to isolate the high-profile drug lords in the NBP to prevent them from contacting other drug traffickers outside the penitentiary. Signal jammers have earlier been installed at the NBP Building 14 where the high-profile inmates are housed.
He also cited the importance of cutting the demand and supply in the war on illegal drugs as well as the pursuit of financial investigation on drug money.
De Los Santos also committed to conduct audit of contracts in the previous administration following allegations of anomalies by several high-profile inmates.
Lastly, he said he plans to demystify the NBP by creating social media accounts.
“We will show the people how the rehabilitation process is being done via Twitter and Facebook,” he added.