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Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Plant a tree, you’re free: SC to parole seekers
PLANTING trees or tending a garden can earn for a prisoner provisional freedom.
This could be one way of decongesting the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC), the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center and other jails.
The Supreme Court (SC) has issued an administrative circular that allows prisoners to get provisional freedom if they plant and nurture a tree, tend a garden or care for a marine sanctuary.
“(These acts) provide a singular opportunity to reconnect the ties between man and nature. Recent studies confirm that this reconnection with nature is also a spiritually restorative exercise...,” SC Administrative Circular 17-2003 said.
Under the circular, those who have not voided their chance at probation may apply through the Parole and Probation Office, but one of the requirements is for them to plant trees in designated forestlands or reserves.
“Helping to restore the Earth’s natural systems is one of the highest forms of community service, for it is encompassed in the constitutional duty of the state to protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced, healthful ecology in accord with the rhythm and harmony of nature,” the circular said.
With the opening of the new city jail in Barangay Kalunasan, the Cebu City Government, aided by an oversight committee, is screening BBRC inmates qualified for early release.
A composite team representing the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the Regional Trial Court, the Parole and Probation Office, the Public Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology identified 63 inmates for release.
Of that number, Assistant City Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane, in an earlier interview, said 26 inmates were approved for immediate release, having served the full term of their sentence.
At least 37 more can also be released because they already served the minimum period of their sentence.
Under the probation law, convicts who are penalized with imprisonment of less than six years can skip jail time by applying for probation.
A BBRC report disclosed that 1,890 inmates are staying in the city jail, 1,625 of whom are still awaiting trial. KNR
(November 4, 2003 issue)
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