THE Senate on Monday, June 3, 2019, approved on third and final reading a bill allowing those found guilty of minor offenses to render community service instead of serving time in jail.

Senate Bill No. 2195, or the proposed Community Service Act, seeks to decongest the country's detention facilities.

Qualified to render community service instead of serving a jail term are those who were meted the penalty of arresto menor and arresto mayor.

Under the Revised Penal Code, arresto mayor means a jail term of one month and one day to six months, while arresto menor means one day to 30 days in jail.

The bill is a substitute bill for Senate Bills 590, 1448, and 1452, which were authored by Senators Antonio Trillanes IV, Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara and Joseph Victor "JV" Ejercito, and Richard Gordon, respectively.

Gordon, chairperson of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said the measure is timely considering that jail congestion rate in the country averages 436 percent, "making it the world's second highest most overcrowded prison in the world, next to Haiti."

Under the measure, the court may require a defendant to render community service in the place where the crime was committed.

They shall be placed under the supervision of a probation officer, and must also undergo counseling under the social welfare and development officer assigned by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

This will give the defendants "a chance to change, rehabilitate and reintegrate themselves into the community," Gordon said.

Upon the completion of community service, the court shall then order the defendant's release unless there is a need for detention for some other crime.

But if the offender violates the terms of his or her community service, the court may order his or her re-arrest and the offender will then serve the jail term in full, or at home under the surveillance of an officer of the law as provided in Article 88 of the Revised Penal Code.

The community service privilege may only be availed of once, to ensure that it will not be abused, Gordon said. (From a report by Ryniel Berlanga/SunStar Philippines)