The Bureau of Corrections is again on primetime news and in the limelight. We are once again treated with the same issues, the same responses, the same queries, the same old songs until another controversy takes over. Meanwhile, we observe.
ACT-CIS Partylist Representative, Congressman Erwin Tulfo is correct. Violation of prison rules still prevail in Bucor despite changes in leadership. Accordingly, even prison administration admits to it and even projects helplessness in dealing with prison privileges enjoyed by a few. It can be said that before there was heavy handedness in managing the affairs in the prison community; but at this time, there is public impression that there is leniency that borders on transactional means.
Worst and sadly, the lowly prison personnel are again blamed for whatever mess there is.
Bucor has become a whipping boy for a while and most of the time a milking cow for political appointees. Whenever something unusual is featured, it has become an opportunity to seek funds to remedy the observation. For example, congestion. Instead of simply transferring prisoners to penal establishments in the countryside, prison leadership would accumulate people under one camp and cry overcrowding, then when questioned; their immediate response would take the form of seeking funds for infra and more, to build additional prison facilities. That means funds in the billions. Knowing that a big percentage awaits the proponent, the problem is even emphasized more, touching such nobler mission like in the interest of human rights or to transform corrections to world class standards to generate support and understanding.
We are in deep shit already, the country’s debt has ballooned and asking for funds is anathema to good management. If the funds intended could spark economic progress, why not? But spending it for prisoners on the guise of human rights or whatever, then it sounds more like a scam. I smell one whenever prison officials would submit requests for funding.
Correctional administration is not rocket science. It is basically a matter of common sense. There is congestion? Move people to other stations. Overcrowding solve. There is riot? Remove gangs by alphabetizing cell occupancy. Violence gone. But some people appointed at the helm had a different understanding of their milieu and their role in it. They know that a political appointment is a reward position. It is not recognition of merit or an acknowledgement of expertise hence anybody with partisan connection can just assume even if they do not know the mandate of the agency. That explains why public service is administered blindly, at times in a mediocre way.
My point is this. Prison officials can easily improve on their turf unless they disabuse their minds from entertaining thoughts about how to get the rewarding part. It is on the dark side. Bucor has great assets—manpower and land. It can contribute to national efforts in industry and agriculture if only it has the correct intention. Government could even earn in the process. Prison officials should focus on this instead and not on asking funds for imagined projects.
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