MANILA, Philippines — Justice Secretary Leila de Lima Tuesday assured the Senate that she and Malacañang’s economic cluster are “definitely, seriously” moving to revoke previous presidential proclamations giving ownership of the P40-billion 366.7-hectare prison compound in Muntinlupa City from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) to the National Housing Authority (NHA) in 2004.
De Lima also told senators that the House of Representatives shares the thinking of the Senate that the country must have a unified or regionalized prison system.
She said she also agrees with Sen. Franklin M. Drilon that the NBP should vacate the Muntinlupa prison compound which commands a valuable real estate price of about P40 billion.
To sell the 200-hectare golf courses owned by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the 366.7-hectare prison compound would bring in P80 billion to the government coffers, Drilon said.
In Tuesday’s public hearing on the proposed 2012 budget of the Department of Justice (DoJ) by the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Drilon, Bureau of Correction (BuCor) chief Gaudencio Pangilinan admitted to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile that “we are now informal settlers” after ownership of the Muntinlupa prison compound was transferred to NHA by virtue of the 2004 presidential proclamation.
“Informal settlers” is a euphemism for squatters.
4,000 escapees
Pangilinan also admitted during the public hearing that there are now 4,000 escapees throughout the country.
He said that out of some 5,000 prisoners who escaped from several prisons in the country during the past six months, the BuCor has so far recaptured about 1,000 of them.
“There are efforts (at the Executive Department) to revoke the circulars (proclamations) as far as feasible,” De Lima told Senators Enrile, Drilon, and Panfilo Lacson on the need for the NBP to get back ownership of the Muntinlupa prison compound.
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