Jailed ex-mayor’s furlough defended

Officials of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) said the furlough of a jailed former town mayor in Cebu from the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) was all in order.

BuCor officer in charge Manuel Co and NBP Superintendent Ramon Reyes told the Inquirer that former Compostela town Mayor Gilbert Wagas secured a pass from no less than Justice Secretary Leila de Lima since he had to attend two court hearings in Cebu last week.

A week before the court hearings, the NBP filed the request with the Department of Justice (DoJ) to allow Wagas to leave the national penitentiary and appear before two Cebu courts on July 22 and 25 for his other pending cases.

“If he was not hospitalized, I think he should be back by now here in Muntinlupa,” Reyes said Wednesday.

Reyes explained that the new protocol regarding inmates leaving the national penitentiary requires inmates to get clearance from the secretary of justice, since BuCor is an attached agency of the DoJ.

He added that the new directive could be an offshoot of the caper pulled by former Batangas Gov. Jose Antonio Leviste in June when he slipped out the national penitentiary allegedly due to a nagging toothache.