Aborted transfer of Bilibid to Ecija saddens biz group

NO TRANSFER The New Bilibid Prison will stay in its current location in Muntinlupa City. EDWIN BACASMAS

CABANATUAN CITY—Business leaders in Nueva Ecija province are disappointed by the Duterte administration’s decision to abandon the planned relocation of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) to the Fort Magsaysay military reservation in General Tinio town.

The P50-billion new national penitentiary in Barangay Nazareth would have been built by 40,000 workers, manned by 4,800 custodial and rehabilitation officers and maintained by 9,000 prison workers.

But during the House inquiry into the proliferation of illegal drugs at the NBP in Muntinlupa City, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the plan was abandoned because “the cost and transfer of the building is too high and is, therefore, not practical.”

“Scrapping the transfer of the NBP to Nueva Ecija hurts a lot for businessmen, laborers, and farmers [because] it would have opened opportunities for commerce like food production, lodging places, transport services, manual services for construction, and even tourism,” said Dr. Reynato Arimbuyutan, president of the Nueva Ecija chapter of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He said the site for the new penitentiary was near the undeveloped Minalungao Park.

Investors looking at a downstream economy that may develop from the proposed penitentiary are unhappy about the decision, Arimbuyutan said.

Arimbuyutan is a member of the Central Luzon Regional Development Council which endorsed the transfer of NBP to the Fort Magsaysay reservation.

The projected transfer of NBP was initiated by the Aquino administration and was to be carried out as a public-private partnership project of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Corrections.

The new penitentiary was designed to house 20,000 inmates from NBP in Muntinlupa and 2,000 from the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.

Under the plan, the Muntinlupa penitentiary, now valued at P42 billion, would be converted into a mixed-use commercial area. Anselmo Roque, Inquirer Central Luzon