Talks begin on plan to transfer national prisons to Nueva Ecija

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) has begun consultations with Nueva Ecija officials for the development of a site in Fort Magsaysay to house the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) and Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) in Metro Manila.

Gaudencio Pangilinan, BuCor director, confirmed the talks in a telephone interview on Saturday, saying the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council  was also involved in the discussions that started last week.

President Benigno Aquino earlier announced a plan to transfer the NBP to a better and bigger location.

Provincial and local councils in Nueva Ecija have yet to issue resolutions or ordinances supporting or rejecting the relocation plan at a portion of the 35,000-hectare military reservation.

The province is home to the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, two units of the Special Operations Command and a division of the Army Aviation Battalion. It is also one of the regular venues of military exercises for foreign troops covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement.

While talks have yet to reach his office, Gov. Aurelio Umali said he would not oppose the NBP and CIW transfer to his province. “I have no problem with that,” he said.

Pangilinan said BuCor is looking at a site in a section of Fort Magsaysay in Laur town. “The site shall be modern in design and its thrust shall be the reformation of inmates,” he said.

He said more than 20,000 prisoners in NBP and 2,000 more in CIW should be transferred to a facility in Fort Magsaysay because the present inmate populations in those facilities are double their original capacities.

Pangilinan said BuCor pursued the plan to move the two facilities to Fort Magsaysay after local officials in Tanay, Rizal province, expressed reluctance to host them.

This happened although former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, through Executive Order No. 568  in 2006, had authorized the transfer of NBP to a 272-ha reservation in Barangay Cuyambay in Tanay.

Aside from modernizing the national penitentiary, the government intends to develop the 366-ha NBP compound into a mixed-use area, Pangilinan said. The property, valued at P42 billion, will have spaces for residential, commercial, manufacturing, industrial and tourism purposes.

BuCor, an agency under the Department of Justice, is seeking a budget of P13.7 billion next year to fund the site development and transfer.

Local communities, Pangilinan said, can benefit from jobs and businesses to be generated by the relocation program while inmates can grow vegetables and plant fruit trees in Fort Magsaysay’s idle lands. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon