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Catapang hopes PH's 'Alcatraz-like' prison will be completed by 2028


Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Gregorio Catapang Jr. on Monday expressed hope that the Alcatraz-type prison in the Philippines for heinous crime offenders will be completed by 2028.

“It began this year and then hopefully we’ll be completing it before the end of 2028,” Catapang said in an interview on CNN Philippines.

The Alcatraz Penitentiary, also known as "The Rock", was a maximum-security prison on an island in San Francisco Bay, California.

According to Catapang, the country’s version of the prison will be “up in the mountains” in Sablayan, Mindoro.

“There will be no cell sites and there are no road nets, only a single road net where you will be brought. So it’s really a supermax, what we call it, a supermax prison for heinous crime offenders,” he said.

Meanwhile, Catapang said he is eyeing to close down the New Bilibid Prison by 2028, transferring 30,000 persons deprived of liberty to different regional prisons and penal farms.

“And then what will remain here is the office or the headquarters and we will convert that maximum security compound into a museum,” he said.

“And then we’ll lease about 330 hectares so that we’ll be able to raise the amount — maybe about P150, P160 billion — to relocate and replicate the facilities here somewhere else,” he added.

The BuCor chief previously said he was looking to turn the BuCor headquarters in Muntinlupa into a "Global City."

Meanwhile, he said BuCor will transfer 7,500 PDLs out of NBP this year.

“I will be transferring 7,500 inmates or PDLs in— 2,500 in Davao, another 2,500 in Iwahig in Palawan, and another 2,500 in Leyte,” he said. —VAL, GMA Integrated News

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