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Friday, March 29, 2024

Regional ‘Bilibid’ urged

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A PARTY-LIST lawmaker on Wednesday asked a panel in the House of Representatives to consider the proposal to regionalize the national penitentiary, similar to the jail being planned in Nueva Ecija.

At the congressional hearing conducted by the House committee on justice on the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison Wednesday, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Alfredo Garbin urged the Department of Justice to develop comprehensive strategies on jail management.

“I will strongly recommend to the committee on justice that part of the committee recommendation after we finish this investigation for the govt to start strategize decongestion of the national penitentiary,” Garbin said.

He also proposed to “regionalize and decentralize national penitentiary [intended to] dissolve organized gang and drug/criminal syndicates.”

Garbin also urged Congress “to pass a law exempting prison guards from career services and make them confidential employees so that DoJ can remove them anytime they commit dereliction of duties or violations of law.”

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This develop as House Minority Leader and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez expressed that Congress will be able to plug the loopholes in the existing laws to address the proliferation of drug syndicates at the NBP.

Suarez said that the testimonies of NBP inmates before the House committee on justice opened Pandora’s Box.

“We look forward to the outcome of House Resolution 105 calling an investigation in aid of legislation on the proliferation of drug syndicates at the National Bilibid Prison.

“… The focus of the [investigation] expanded to equally alarming criminal activities inside the NBP such as bribing public officials, trading in contraband, and prostitution. All these activities purportedly to raise funds for the senatorial campaign of then Secretary De Lima. There were also concerts and entry of trucks of beers for the inmates. How did it get this far? We wonder, does the buck stop with Senator de Lima or are other government officials similarly responsible?” Suarez told reporters at a news conference.

Suarez said the pieces of information revealed during the House probe “creates a new imperative to address and eradicate corruption in all the correctional facilities, and investigate how the present system in these facilities allows criminal activities inside the NBP,” Suarez added.

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