DOJ eyeing smaller prison facilities to focus on inmates’ reformation
The New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City (GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on Friday bared plans to “scuttle” the New Bilibid Prison (NPB) to smaller units to help reform inmates.
“Bilibid is a different subculture. If you look at it, it’s a story unto itself, has its own language, has its own way of doing business [and] has its own rules,” Remulla said in an interview on ANC’s Headstart.
“The culture is really different inside that’s why we have been pushing for the scuttling of this mass prison or the mega prison that we have because it has dehumanized our prison population,” he added.
Hence, the justice secretary said that the DOJ has been searching for funding and has already talked with several local government unit leaders who expressed willingness to host regional prisons.
“In that kind of world right now in corrections, it really [needs] smaller prisons, so that reformation will be possible and that they will not veer away too far from reality because the people who come out of Bilibid are different people already and they have a different sense of reality,” Remulla said.
“The mark of a good society is how it takes care of those who need help, and I think that we have looked upon this population as people who need help also,” he added.
