Aguirre: Duterte admin scraps De Lima’s mega jail plan in Nueva Ecija

The Duterte administration has scrapped the plan to put up a mega jail facility in Nueva Ecija, a proposal that then Justice Secretary Leila De Lima put forth in 2014.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said that the Duterte administration was instead going for the construction of regional detention facilities, which he indicated would be more cost-efficient.

"The administration has decided to scrap it because... it will cost the Philippine government P150 billion in matter of twenty years. P50 billion ang initial payment," Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said on Friday.

Aguirre said that the government was eyeing the construction of regional jails in northern Luzon (either in Pangasinan or Ilocos), Nueva Ecija, Palawan, Davao and Zamboanga.

"The principal objection why the nueva ecija project was scrapped was because of the inconveninece which will be experienced by the detainees," Aguirre said of the mega jail facility.

"Kung 'yan ay ikakalat mo, madali na lang mabibisita. Next year target na simulan," he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte recently asked erstwhile Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Dionisio Santiago to resign after the latter said that the construction of the mega drug rehabilitation facility in Nueva Ecija was "a miscalculation."

Santiago said regional rehabilitation centers were more efficient for the government and were better for the patients, who need to be visited by their loved ones. —Margaret Claire Layug/NB, GMA News