Duterte names ex-PNP general as new BuCor chief

MANILA, Philippines - President Duterte has appointed retired police general Benjamin de los Santos as the new director of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

On recommendations of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, Duterte signed the appointment papers of De los Santos last Nov. 18.

“My sincerest gratitude to Secretary Aguirre for recommending me to the post and to President Duterte for appointing me to this sensitive position amid controversies surrounding drugs, criminality and corruption,” De los Santos told The STAR.

De los Santos was part of the campaign efforts of San Beda Law Lex Talionis Fraternitas that supported the presidential bid of the former Davao City mayor in the last May 9 elections.

Only last Saturday, Duterte along with Aguirre and other former classmates attended the Silver Jubilee of the San Beda College of Law.

De los Santos will take his oath of office before Aguirre at the Department of Justice today. The BuCor is one of the attached agencies of the DOJ.

De los Santos will take over from BuCor officer-in-charge Rolando Asuncion.

The newly designated BuCor chief, as the new sheriff in town, will supervise the various state-run jails, including the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

Once called “Las Vegas,” the maximum security compound of the NBP at Muntinlupa City has repeatedly been pinpointed by Duterte as a place where shabu was being cooked by convicted drug lords and other high-profile inmates that included Chinese and other foreigners.

“With my dream of a correctional academy that will train and educate professional prison guards and reformation specialists on upgraded salary standards, I will definitely work to be an instrument of transition to a modern correctional system free from a contagious environment for corruption and criminal activities,” De los Santos said.

He admitted the big challenge ahead of him to cleanse the NBP and other state-run penitentiaries across the country, given the limited resources of government.

He lamented that the BuCor, particularly the NBP, has not received enough administrative and budgetary support over the years.

“This has resulted in a security nightmare of overpopulation, with a guard-to-inmate ratio of one is to 300,” he noted.

Current NBP population is 16,000 for a structure good for 5,000 inmates, he said.

“Sadly, gang leaders are left to oversee if not control their members due to lack of guards,” he said.

De los Santos was told the 2013 BuCor modernization law has not been implemented.

He disclosed the DOJ secretary informed him the latter is now pursuing and finalizing with the Department of Budget and Management the approval of the 2017 budget to partially implement it.

A high priority capital outlay, he said, is focused on a bigger and expandable correctional facility in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.

“This can accommodate a streamlined NBP population that can be properly segregated and efficient security controls implemented,” he stressed. 

Thus, the penitentiary as the fifth pillar of our criminal justice system can better perform its reformatory and penology mandate, he pointed out.