Senator Francis Tolentino on Wednesday urged those who are calling for Justice Secretary Crispin “Boying” Remulla to resign from his post to stop and let the latter continue his work.
“The call for the resignation of Justice Secretary Remulla was wrong. It was wrong. Let us make him do his work,” Tolentino, chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights said at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay in Pasay City.
This, after calls for Remulla to resign mounted following his son’s arrest for allegedly importing illegal drugs into the country.
Tolentino expressed belief that Remulla will be true to his words when the latter said that he will not be involved in the case of his son Juanito Jose Remulla III, who was arrested for importing P1 million worth of kush or high-grade marijuana.
“In the case of (the son) of Secretary Boying, he said himself that he will be ‘hands-off.’ Yesterday there was a team of prosecutors organized in Pasay to handle the case,” he said.
“It just goes to show that he has no bias or preferences in terms of the dispensation of justice,” he added.
Tolentino, a native of Cavite, said he supports Remulla not because they are townmates but because he understands him as a father.
“But for the record, I support the current efforts of Secretary Remulla, I support him not just as a fellow Caviteno, but as a father to a son,” he said.
“And there’s really a need to delineate the workings of a father within a household vis-a-vis the workings of a justice secretary mandated to ensure that justice is dispensed within our system,” he added.
Skyhigh prices
Meanwhile, Remulla has noted the sky-high prices of cellphones inside the National Bilibid Prison, saying each one costs from P300,000 to P500,000.
The insane pricing, Remulla said, shows how bad is the situation inside the densely-packed prison facility in Muntinlupa.
The ultra-expensive iPhone 14 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 is no much to the cellular phones inside the NBP in Muntinlupa City which are available to inmates at an exorbitant price.
Remulla faced the media the other day in an effort to put into perspective how bad the prevalence of corruption in the state penitentiary.
“The problem in Bilibid is we must uproot corruption because generations and generations of people, the guards of Bilibid feel an entitlement to the positions that they occupy and that the temptation there is so great that it is so hard to check on these people. A telephone is being sold inside Bilibid for 300K to 500K. That is the extent of how bad it is right now there,” Remulla said.
The justice chief also revealed that power jumpers are being sold by unscrupulous prison guards to hundreds of house owners around the Bilibid facility.
”You heard about the case of jumpers of 200 houses outside the medium security prison? They have to be cut off. Many of the guards are the ones who own it or many of those houses are owned by the guards,” Remulla said.
The NBP, along with six other prison facilities, is being managed by the Bureau of Corrections, which is an attached agency of the Department of Justice.
Remulla shortly after his appointment to the DoJ, named BuCor as among the three problematic agencies. The other two were the Bureau of Immigration and Land Registration Authority.
BuCor recently came under fire anew when at least eight high-profile inmates died under mysterious circumstances at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The agency also came under fire after retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. was allowed media interview.