De Lima hits Duterte over appointment of new BuCor chief Bantag

Senator Leila de Lima on Thursday expressed her reservations over President Rodrigo Duterte's appointment of Gerald Bantag as the new chief of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) despite the criminal charges against him.

“BuCor needs someone capable of instituting sweeping reforms. Someone uncompromising and incorruptible, with a deep understanding of the complex realities and needs of the correctional system,” the senator said in a dispatch from her detention cell.

De Lima, a former Justice secretary, noted that Duterte appointed Bantag, even as he has been charged with murder over the death of 10 inmates following an explosion at the Parañaque City Jail in 2016 when he was  its warden.

For the opposition senator who is a staunch critic of the administration, Bantag is "just another appointee of Mr. Duterte who is valued more for his willingness to resort to violence and murder than his competence."

“If he was willing to commit murder then, he would be even more willing now. Especially since it is Duterte who controls his destiny. Duterte can make his cases go away in exchange for his unquestioning loyalty,” she remarked.

“With him at the helm, we can expect more senseless killings and zero progress towards prison reforms," she added.

De Lima also mentioned in her dispatch that Senator Bong Go, who was a long-time aide for the President, wanted a "killer" at the BuCor helm and that his former boss "made it happen.”

Duterte appointed Bantag as the new BuCor chief on September 17.

He replaces Nicanor Faeldon, who was sacked by the President earlier this month following the controversial approval of the release of several heinous crime convicts. — Margaret Claire Layug/BM, GMA News