Newly-appointed Bureau of Corrections chief Gregorio Catapang Jr. said he will reshuffle all personnel in the agency’s prisons and penal farms.
“There will be a reshuffle,” Catapang said in an interview after he took his oath before Justice Secretary Jesus Remulla yesterday.
“I don’t want to preempt it, I will have a command conference (today, Tuesday). I will announce the reshuffling of personnel within BuCor,” he added.
Remulla on Monday directed Catapang to prevent abuses against persons deprived of liberty (PDLs).
“We don’t want abuses to happen again,” Remulla said.
He said the marching orders he gave Catapang were the same as those he instructed the latter to do when he assumed the position of acting BuCor director in October 2022 when then director Gerald Bantag was preventively suspended.
In particular, Remulla said he instructed Catapang to “help clean up jails” and “make the detention facilities a better place” for inmates.
“Make the jails function as a correction measure rather than a punishment. To make the jails a more humane place for us, for our PDLs because that is our commitment, our obligation under the law,” Remulla said.
Catapang said he already has a plan but will keep it confidential for now so as not to telegraph his punches.
“I don’t want to disclose it because personnel movement makes people uneasy,” he said.