Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla on Monday, March 27, directed newly appointed Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Gregorio Pio P. Catapang Jr. to prevent abuses against persons deprived of liberty (PDLs).
“We don’t want abuses to happen again,” Remulla told reporters after he swore Catapang into office.
Remulla said the marching orders he gave Catapang were the same as those he instructed the latter to do when he assumed as acting director in October 2022 when then director Gerald Q. Bantag was preventively suspended.
Specifically, Remulla said he ordered Catapang to “help clean up jails” and “make the detention facilities a better place” for PDLs.
“Make the jails function as a correction measure rather than a punishment. To make the jails more humane place for us, for our PDLs because that is our commitment, our obligation under the law,” he stressed.
For his part, Catapang – a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) – said “there will be a reshuffle” of officials and personnel at the BuCor and its prison facilities.
He did not reveal the details of the reshuffle.