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De Lima reiterates call to address overcrowding in PHL jails

MANILA, Jan. 12 (PNA) -- As several jails in the Philippines remain extremely overcrowded, Sen. Leila de Lima on Thursday sought for a Senate probe on a current situation of jails to address its current sorry state.

De Lima, on Tuesday (January 10) sent Senate Justice Committee Chairman Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon a letter requesting him to give priority attention to her resolution P.S. Res. No. 97.

The resolution, filed last Aug. 15, seeks “instituting remedial measures that would ensure that the government accomplishes the goals of the penal and detention systems, including the protection of the rights and welfare of persons deprived of liberty.”

Attached to the letter are a series of photographs published by the US’s Time Magazine which captured the country jails’ congestion problem.

De Lima, former Justice Secretary, said she hopes that the panel would make it a priority as inmates continue to add to the already-congested jails which she described as in “unspeakable, uncivilized and inhumane condition.”

She further said that overcrowding encouraged the proliferation of illegal activities among the inmates among other problems.

“This extreme overcrowding of prisoners in jails breeds a number of severe problems in jail management, including illness and poor hygiene among inmates, substandard sleeping accommodation, lack of food provision, among others,” De Lima added.

Moreover, she said that inmates also tend to develop “tension and hostility” against each other which eventually lead to gang wars.

The neophyte senator further said that even if inmates have disobeyed the law, they were “still human beings who deserve to enjoy the basic rights to live decently and with dignity.”

In 2015, data showed that Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) accounts for 93,961 prisoners, which is 398 percent congestion rate in all the 461 jails in the country today. The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) accounts for 41,144 inmates in its seven prison and penal farms.

On the other hand, the Philippines has been ranked 12th in the world with a prison population of 142,168 in 2016, based on the World Prison Brief of the London-based International Centre for Prison Studies

As former Justice Secretary, De Lima pushed for passage of the modernization of BuCor in 2013 as part of the previous administration’s thrust to decongest and improve the facilities of the country’s jail system.

She meanwhile stressed that the state of the country’s jails should be given more attention especially in view of the intensified drive against criminality under the administration under Pres. Rodrigo Duterte. (PNA) JBP/ANP and Jake M. Castillo (OJT)

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