Duterte to appoint Bato dela Rosa as next BuCor chief
FOURTH STAR: President Duterte promotes newly appointed Philippine National Police chief Ronald de la Rosa to director general, a four-star rank, during turnover rites at Camp Crame in Quezon City on July 1, 2016. Kiwi Bulaclac, File photo
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte is set to appoint Philippine National Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa as the next Bureau of Corrections chief.
Duterte confirmed Dela Rosa’s upcoming appointment to reporters on Tuesday night. The PNP chief will retire on January 21 next year.
Asked about his retirement plans, Dela Rosa, who had described his last year as the country's top cop as a “roller coaster ride,” earlier said he is expected to be designated to the “most challenging agency in the government where everyone failed.”
“He (Duterte) said ‘I expect you to succeed.’ Imagine that he is giving me the most difficult job,” Dela Rosa recalled.
An attached agency of the Department of Justice, the BuCor is tasked to implement effective rehabilitation and safekeeping of prisoners.
The drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison, a facility managed by the BuCor, was a talking point for Duterte during the 2016 election campaign.
He accused the Aquino administration of doing nothing to curb the drug-trafficking in the national penitentiary, which he said is the center of the drug trade in the country.
Sen. Leila de Lima, a Duterte critic and former Justice secretary, is in jail for allegedly receiving money from drug convicts in Bilibid to fund her senatorial campaign.
But she had denied the allegations as a demolition job against her for opposing the president's policies, particularly his war on drugs.
Elite police Special Action Force troopers had been deployed to Bilibid to guard against the return of illegal drugs.
READ: BuCor chief quits over resurgence of Bilibid drug trade
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