“They were converted into uniformed personnel without training, to wear the uniform. When you say wear the uniform, they should be disciplined, they should follow orders and they should not commit corruption,” Catapang explained.

Citing his experience as the Armed Forces Chief of Staff or even when he was a battalion commander or company commander, Catapang said he can outrightly dismiss a soldier using articles of war and if a soldier committed an infringement, he can easily be dismissed from the service.

“It cannot be done in the BuCor because there are processes that you have to follow like the Civil Service Commission rules and regulations and the Department of Justice. You cannot just terminate them immediately even if they committed corruption,” Catapang lamented.

Right now, the bureau is hiring young blood of corrections officers (COs) and Catapang intends to promote all qualified uniformed BuCor personnel to the next higher rank to weed out all scalwags in the bureau.

The BuCor already hired 1,000 COs last year and currently hiring another 1,000 this year and the Department of Budget approved the hiring of another 1,000 next year, Catapang told the committee.

“They will constitute the new blood of BuCor who will regain the trust and confidence of the Filipino people. We will therefore have a total of 3,000 new correction officers by end of 2024 who will represent the beginning of a reformed BuCor,” Catapang said.

“We will ingrain to them integrity, dedication to service, and the courage to refuse corruption,” he added.

At present, the BuCor is continuously retooling and organizing seminars and training to promote values formation to all its personnel.

“We need to do this because some of our personnel have been in the bureau for so long at dahil yung mga ninuno nila ay nagtrabaho din sa bureau, they felt entitled kaya talagang mahaba habang proseso para sila madisiplina,” Catapang explained.

With regards to congestion, Catapang said that he will continue to transfer more PDLs from NBP once the construction of facilities in Iwahig, Davao, and Leyte Prison and Penal Farms are completed.

So far, 500 PDLs have already been transferred to Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm and they have been implementing the “Bills Laya” Program wherein more than 4,000 PDLs have been released from various prison and penal farms after serving their sentence, acquitted of the charges against them, paroled and those who qualified for the good conduct time allowance or GCTA.

Reprinted with permission form the Daily Tribune and publisher brod Willie Fernandez '69