THE main problem hounding our jails, congestion, is in the limelight again with the request of officials of the Naga City Jail in Barangay Naalad for the temporary transfer of their inmates while the City Government of Naga addresses the worry that another landslide could hit the facility after cracks were discovered there. Authorities are set to conduct slope stabilization activities in the area.
I reckon only a few of our jails have reached the level of congestion comparable with what we see on television regarding the same facilities in the National Capital Region. The worst I saw was a jail where inmates schedule their sleeping hours or sit while sleeping because of the utter lack of space inside. On this, I always go back to my experience as an inmate and consider myself lucky.
That was in 1987 at the old Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC) in Barangay Apas, Cebu City. The city’s prison facility is now the Cebu City Jail and is located in Barangay Kalunasan. Even the transfer failed to solve the problem of congestion because years after it was built the jail is, again, overcrowded.
When I was jailed in BBRC, the overcrowding was just beginning. I was in Brigada 9, a relatively big detention cell that had almost 60 inmates. (You’d know the exact number because of the “bilang” ritual done there late afternoons wherein inmates would sit in line with five people per line and do the count off.)
It obviously wasn’t that crowded because a non-government organization, noticing how inmates would sleep on the concrete floor, which was considered bad for their health, distributed lawanit boards for us to sleep on. The floor of Brigada 9 could still accommodate at that time the almost 60 lawanit boards. The length of those lawanit boards, I think was around five feet.
During day time, when all of us were seated, there was still a big space in Brigada 9. The cell even had a “kobol” (makeshift room with straw sacks for walls) for the Brigada 9 “mayor.” The “kobol” had the mayor’s folding bed. By the way, Brigada 9 also had its own toilet and bathroom.
The old BBRC even had a yard where we would spend our time (“magpahangin”) late in the afternoon. The yard had a basketball court. We go there after saying the holy rosary and until the bell rings for the “bilang.” What I am saying is that while BBRC at that time was getting crowded, we still managed to be leisurely.
Of course, the noise of hundreds of inmates conversing or verbally interacting in one facility was a torture for people like me who like the quiet of the countryside. The noise ebbed at midnight when many inmates were already asleep but became bothersome again at dawn when the early birds started doing their thing.
Years after I was freed, complaints about congestion in the BBRC were raised. Considering that the number of inmates had doubled by then, I thought this was true. And I did see that for myself when I visited the place when I was already working with the media. Brigada 9 and the other cells were no longer recognizable because, to save on space, the dividing walls were broken down and the lobbies occupied.