It’s not happening ASAP, but it’s already a done deal.
“After nearly 75 years in Muntinlupa City, the formation of a technical working group to work out the details for the transfer of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) to Nueva Ecija province is underway,” report Anselmo Roque and Kristine Felisse Mangunay in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director Franklin Jesus Bucayu was quoted as saying, “I can’t estimate when [the procurement process] will be finished but [hopefully, it will be completed] within 2015.”
The report revealed that “the future site of the national penitentiary is a 500-hectare property in the town of Laur, Nueva Ecija.”
The construction of the new national prison site is estimated to take around three years. A budget of PHP50.18 billion allocated for the project.
Bucayu disclosed that “once the transfer was complete, the government is planning to convert the NBP compound into a mixed-use commercial area. However, nothing is definite as of this time.
The report noted: “The new NBP would house 25,000 to 26,000 inmates and conform to the national requirements of a penal facility. The national penitentiary has currently over 20,000 prisoners and is overcrowded.”
Photo: WikiCommons
