BuCor: 800 Bilibid convicts moved to penal colonies

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) has started transferring some 800 convicts at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City to penal colonies across the country to address overcrowding at the main prison facility, an official said yesterday.

“Our main objective is to decongest the NBP’s maximun security compound that has reached its capacity of 9,000 inmates, resulting in overcrowding of dormitories,” BuCor director Fraklin Bucayo told The STAR.

He said around 22,000 inmates are serving time at NBP.

Bucayo said the inmates were transferred to Davao Penal Colony in Zamboanga City, Sablayan Prison in Mindoro, Iwahig Prison and Penal Farms in Palawan and Leyte Regional Prison.

He said the government would provide the basic needs of inmates serving time at the penal colonies.

Female convicts will remain committed to the Correctional Institution For Women in Mandaluyong City, the BuCor chief said.

Bucayo said the inmates would be transferred to the penal colony near their places of origin so that their families and loved ones need not travel to Manila to visit them.

He said the different prison farms dubbed as “prisons without wall” provide institutional work programs to prepare inmates for their return to society once they had completed serving their prison terms.

Bucayo said more than 4,000 prisoners were released last year after serving time at the NBP. But 5,500 new convicts were committed to the prison facility since 2013.

“There is a need for more buildings and infrastructures in penal colonies to accommodate the increasing number of prisoners,” he said.

He said the Prison Modernization program being pursued by the Aquino administration is veering away from the punitive measures to rehabilitate the inmates.