Palace: Duterte scouting for ‘honest, competent’ BuCor chief
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2019 10:37:00 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is looking for a new head of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) who is honest and competent, Malacañang said on Thursday.
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo made the statement after Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go asked Duterte to appoint a “killer” from the list of qualified retired police of military officials.
“A killer? the President has not made any announcement on that so we’ll just have to wait for his appointing a person to replace (former BuCor) chief (Nicanor) Faeldon,” Panelo told reporters during a press conference.
“You know, the President has only two qualifications: honesty and competence,” he added.
Go, who served as Duterte’s top aide, said he wanted a “killer” to be the next BuCor chief as such a person was qualified to hold a government post.
The senator said he had some people in mind, who are retired uniformed officials but did not elaborate.
Duterte had sacked Faeldon after he approved the release of several heinous-crime convicts under the controversial good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law, which makes inmates eligible for early release depending on their behavior in prison.
Critics, along with authors of the law, have argued that heinous-crime convicts are excluded from the coverage of the GCTA law.
Some 2,000 heinous-crime convicts have been released under the law since 2014, igniting public uproar and official scrutiny of the measure.
Panelo said the Palace would wait for the results of the investigation after plunder convict Janet Lim-Napoles was reported tohave been included on the GCTA list, along with Antonio Sanchez, former mayor of Calauan, Laguna.
Napoles was sentenced to life in prison by the Sandiganbayan in relation to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) scam plunder cases of Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., and former senators Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile.
“As we have said, let the investigation proceed and let the truth come out, and thereafter, heads will roll,” Panelo said. CATHERINE S. VALENTE