IT’S good news to the close to 1,000 inmates of the Cebu City Jail who are facing minor drug cases.
Apparently, the courts want to decongest the facility so it is offering them a way out in the form of a plea bargain.
There’s a catch, though.
They have to enter community-based rehabilitation centers or the rehabilitation center in the southern town of Argao once they’re released.
The report didn’t say what will happen to them after that, but, hey, it’s better than staying a day longer in the cramped facility in Barangay Kalunasan. Right?
Also, they have to pass a drug test and a drug dependency examination that will be administered by the staff of the Department of Health’s halfway house in Barangay Carreta. Once they pass that hurdle, they also need the halfway house’s doctor to recommend to the court that they are eligible for the program.
But to be considered for the program, they must first plead guilty. Not only that, the punishment for the case they are facing must not be life imprisonment. And they cannot have been arrested with more than five grams of shabu, marijuana, opium and other prohibited drugs. Finally, if they are facing possession charges, the penalty must not be more than four years and the fines not more than P50,000.
If they don’t pass these criteria, then they’re staying put.
Well, I guess you could consider this program an early Christmas present for the inmates who are languishing in the Cebu City Jail. Of course, you could look at it that way. Or, if you’re a cynic like me, you could say that they’d only make easy pickings for those riding-in-tandem assailants.
I mean, we’re talking about close to 1,000 drug offenders who will soon be walking on our streets. I’m sure some of them will have turned over a new leaf, but let me bet you that most of them will go back to their old ways.
Let’s just be realistic about this.
It’d be nice if they all become law-abiding citizens and start contributing to society. Legally. But that doesn’t even happen in the movies anymore.
So that’s the situation as I see it. But I know someone who’ll be looking forward to their release. The people behind the rash of killings in the metro will surely have a field day. Consider it their early Christmas present.
With that said, maybe inmates are having second thoughts about accepting this “get out jail” card. Or I could be wrong. After all, I’m not the one who has to endure the facility’s squalid conditions.