Lacson takes interest in NBP inmates' meals

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Panfilo Lacson can’t bear seeing himself in jail but he has taken an interest in the measly meal budget for inmates at the crowded New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa.

But Lacson was quick to say that he was not guilty of any crime, apparently referring to the double murder charges filed against him before a Manila court for the killing of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000.

“I asked that not because I am going there. I don’t intend to go there. This is not to influence the good secretary because I am not guilty,” said Lacson as he was scrutinizing the P5-billion budget of the Department of Justice, which was reviewed by the Senate subcommittee on finance yesterday. The DOJ has under its wing the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), which handles the NBP and other jails in the country.

The government officials and other groups who attended the preliminary budget hearings laughed after Lacson made the comment.

In an interview, Lacson said he pities the inmates for getting only a meal allowance of P50 a day. Prior to this, Lacson asked BuCor director Oscar Calderon how the agency manages to feed some 36,000 inmates nationwide.

Calderon, a former chief of the Philippine National Police like Lacson, said they try to make do with the small meal budget by coming up with monthly set menus that are catered to the NBP in Muntinlupa and other jails nationwide.

Calderon told the committee that the BuCor asked the Department of Budget and Management to raise each prisoner’s daily meal budget to P60 and daily medicine allowance from P3 to P5, but the DBM turned them down.

Calderon lamented that the BuCor-supervised jails nationwide are densely populated and they are expecting the population to increase from 36,000 to 39,000 by next year. Despite this, he said the budget given for 2008 was only for 36,000 inmates when the population already reached around 37,000.