Source: Business Mirror, 20 November 2011
THE government plans to transfer the New Bilibid Prison from Muntinlupa City to another location in the outskirts of Luzon, according to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center.
This is because the government wants to use the land where the prison currently is.
“This is still at the very early stages of development. The government intends to privatize the transfer of prisoners, as well as the land, through PPP. There are several locations within Luzon that are being eyed to host the Bureau of Corrections in Muntinlupa,” PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said.
The New Bilibid Prison is maintained by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), which is under the Department of Justice. The penitentiary had an initial land area of 551 hectares, although 104 hectares of it was transferred to a housing project for employees of the justice department and other government agencies; the area is now known as Katarungan Village.
Mark Rathbone of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Professional Advisors Inc., talking about key issues to consider for developing PPPs, said prisons are among the easiest PPP projects to undertake, citing New Zealand as the first country to use PPP to privatize a prison.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the British firms invited to the country recently to talk about PPPs, provides industry-focused assurance, tax, and advisory services, and has a network of over 161,000 people in 154 countries. The firm caters to industries, including consumer and industrial products and services; financial services; and technology, information and communications, and entertainment.
The UK pioneered PPPs in the 1980s, when it first developed a program to fund school and hospital projects. The UK’s PPP portfolio has since expanded to include many other sectors.
Earlier, the PPP Center disclosed it expects to approve at least five more projects to draw from the Project Development and Monitoring Facility—several water supply-related projects to be implemented by the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System; a post-harvest facility project under the Department of Agriculture; and the manufacture of rifles for the Department of National Defense.
Since the beginning of 2011, the PPP Center has already screened 39 potential PPP projects that have the potential to be undertaken as PPP projects. From these projects, 10 were processed and identified as ready for rollout this year. Two are currently on track: the Daang-Hari South Luzon Expressway (Slex) Link Road project and the North Luzon Expressway-Slex Connector project.
