Mayor Estrada eyes moving city jail to Marikina

MANILA, Philippines – Under former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada’s long-term plan, Manila’s “Batang City Jail” and the rest of the gangs may soon have a change of address.

Estrada said he had discussed with Vice President Jejomar Binay the possibility of trading off the Manila City Jail (MCJ) property in Quiapo with a Manila-owned tract of land in Marikina.

The MCJ property is owned by Home Guaranty Corp., a government home financing agency where Binay sits in the board as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.

Estrada said he had plans for the city government to acquire and develop the MCJ property and, in exchange, offer to HGC the land in Parang, Marikina, where the Manila Boys Town Complex is located. The jail compound can then be transferred to Marikina, he said.

“That (Quiapo) property doesn’t belong to Manila. So I talked to Vice President Binay,” Estrada said in a recent interview with Inquirer editors and reporters. “The City of Manila has a property in Marikina; it’s 23 hectares. The city jail can be moved there.”

Estrada said several developers would be interested in the area currently occupied by the jail. “It’s prime property, even SM (malls) will be interested. But for now we’re just having talks. It will take some time.”

Asked if he expects Marikina to be amenable to his idea, Estrada said: “Why not? It’s not their property.”

Told of the plan, Marikina city administrator Jun Aguilar was surprised. “From what I can remember, that land (in Parang) was donated to the City of Manila a long time ago. The spirit and intent of the donation was to use it for health and wellness,” he told the Inquirer.

“So if they really plan on placing the jail here, it could run counter to the intention of the donation,” Aguilar said.

The official also warned that relocating the jail to his city would affect Marikina’s image. “That place, Boys Town, has been known for a long time as a place dedicated to the transformation of the youth. Our image will somehow be affected. If this continues, how would Marikina be known?”

But he said the Marikina City government would still be willing to discuss the plan with Manila “in the spirit of inter-LGU (local government unit) cooperation. But we will convey our stand.”

The national penitentiary was first located in Manila before it was transferred to what was then a sparsely populated area in Muntinlupa City and renamed New Bilibid Prison in 1940. Manila later used the old prison as the city jail.

The MCJ property has a total area of 13 hectares but the jail compound itself covers only 3.6 hectares. Informal settlers have built shanties around it, posing security concerns.

According to jail officials, drugs and knives could be smuggled from these slum colonies and into the jail by simply throwing these items over the walls. As the walls got taller through the years, so did the shanties, they noted.

The jail was built and designed for a maximum of 1,150 inmates but it currently holds 3,224.