The Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) will be asked to look into the joint venture agreement (JVA) entered into between suspended Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Gerald Q. Bantag and a private corporation for the development of the New Bilibid Prison’s (NBP) more than 300-hectare reservation in Muntinlupa City.
Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla on Friday, Nov. 18, said: “It’s our duty to inform the Ombudsman on these developments because apparently some of them were not within the legal bounds.”
Bantag had said he had signed a JVA with the Nueva Ecija-based ATOM Corporation for the donation of a 234-hectare property where the NBP could be relocated.
In exchange, Bantag said, ATOM will develop the NBP reservation and BuCor will receive 35 percent of the earnings in the development.
“Motu proprio (on its own), the Ombudsman can conduct an investigation. We will cooperate,” Remulla said.
He said the JVA was “done as an independent republic of BuCor dealing with the private sector.”
“Hindi niya sinama ang DOJ noon at tsaka hindi niya sinama ang Office of the President. Hindi niya sinama ang Department of Finance (Bantag did not involve the DOJ, the Office of the President and the Department of Finance),” he lamented.
He reminded that the NBP reservation is a patrimonial property of the Philippines and it belongs to the people and, thus, cannot be disposed by a single person.
“Privatization has to go through the council. It has to go through the Department of Finance. It has to be approved by the secretary of justice it has to be approved by the President. Marami hong approval process ‘yan (It has many approval processes),” Remulla explained.
“Even the SOJ (secretary of justice) has no power over that. It has to go through the process,” said Remulla who learned that the JVA was done in 2020 under the administration of former President Duterte and when Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra was still justice secretary.
Remulla also pointed out that the BuCor Modernization Law cannot be used as basis for the JVA. He said: The law “does not give plenary powers to anybody to dispose of government property. It has to go through a process,”
Meanwhile, Guevarra, who is now the country’s solicitor general, said he was aware about the JVA between the BuCor and ATOM when he was still justice secretary.
Guevarra said: “I was made aware of it after the JVA had been signed by BuCor and ATOM. I sent a memo to DG Bantag telling him to hold off any further action until the DOJ had reviewed the proposed transaction. Eventually my office found that the unsolicited proposal failed to comply with certain legal requirements, and we informed the office of the executive secretary accordingly. Since then, we have not heard about this project. It might have been discontinued.”
On the transfer of NBP to Nueva Ecija, Remulla said the transfer of the entire NBP will still retain the facility as a mega prison instead of the regionalization of the country’s prison system.
At the moment, Remulla said the private sector is not involved in the regionalization plan.
“Of course there are proposals to privatize jail management. But I will not go for that yet. I think it’s too early for this country to think about it. If there are proposals, we’ll look at it,” he said.
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