The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) on Tuesday said it will work closely with communities where its facilities are located. For starters, BuCor Director General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. gave the go signal to the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Puerto Princesa for the Puerto Princesa City Water District to utilize the Sta. Lucia River, Inagawan River and other sources of water under the jurisdiction of the bureau. 'Rest assured that the BuCor is always open to help and cooperate in whatever capacity deemed it necessary particularly in areas where our prison and penal farms are located," Catapang said in a statement. Five-hundred persons deprived of liberty, 50 of them females, from the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City and the Correctional Institute for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City arrived in Palawan on June 28 for transfer to the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm (IPPF). They are part of the initial batch of 2,500 that will be transferred from NBP as part of plans to close the prison facility by 2028 to give way to the construction of a government and business hub. BuCor plans to transfer a total of 18,625 inmates to IPPF and other facilities such as the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm, Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog, Southern Leyte, Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Davao del Norte and San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City. The Americans established the IPPF in 1904 with the concept of 'prison without bars' as inmates were allowed to go into farming or make other sources of livelihood like handicrafts instead of doing nothing inside their cells. Meanwhile, the cramped NBP opened in the early 1940s to house the growing inmate population at the Old Bilibid Prison in Manila, now the Manila City Jail. (PNA)
Source: Philippines News Agency
