NBI to look into hospital passes for sale at Bilibid —DOJ

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will ask the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to look into the alleged sale of hospital passes at the New Bilibid Prison, the latest in a series of purported irregularities to come out of the correctional facility in recent weeks.

The NBI will be asked to conduct a case buildup on the reported scheme, said  Justice Undersecretary Deo Marco, one of three DOJ officials administratively supervising the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) pending the appointment of a new director general.

The department order authorizing the investigation was dated September 9, Monday, but released only on Tuesday.

GMA News reported last week that moneyed inmates could buy their way out of prison cells and into the New Bilibid Prison hospital on the basis of a tampered medical record that would make it appear that they need to be transferred to a less-congested space "for health reasons."

The report, quoting a BuCor employee, said maximum security prisoners such as bigtime drug lords have taken advantage of hospital referral official passes issued by BuCor officials.

This came on the heels of accounts of BuCor officers allegedly selling good conduct credits to prisoners, a purported scheme that is already set to be covered by the investigation the DOJ will launch into the bureau.

Senator Bong Go on Monday said that even hospital referral passes are also allegedly being sold by some Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) employees to inmates.

“We have received reports that some inmates were moved into the New Bilibid Prison Hospital by faking their illness and buying the so-called “hospital referral pass” from BuCor employees,” Go said in a senate hearing.

The two issues surfaced as offshoots to the controversy that has hounded the BuCor starting from when news broke that convicted rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez was a potential beneficiary of a 2013 law allowing reductions to inmates' prison terms based on good behavior.

President Rodrigo Duterte fired BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon last week. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has designated Assistant Secretary Melvin Ramon Buenafe as officer-in-charge.

Duterte has also ordered nearly more than a thousand freed convicts of heinous crimes to surrender to authorities within 15 days or be declared as fugitives. —with a report from Joviland Rita/NB/RSJ, GMA News