THE proposed transfer of the Naga City Jail inmates to the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) and the Female Dormitory of the Cebu City Jail may hit a snag with the hesitance expressed by CPDRC warden Reynaldo Valmoria to accept the transfer.
Valmoria’s hesitance is understandable considering where he is coming from. He is after all dealing with congestion in CPDRC and has recently succeeded in lobbying for the jail to stop accepting new inmates. As a result, the number of inmates in the jail has been reduced from 3,930 to only 3,700. CPDRC as built could only accommodate 1,500 inmates.
The management of the Naga City Jail pushed for the transfer of the inmates after cracks were discovered in the facility. The jail is located in the upper portion of Barangay Naalad. The fear of another landslide like the one that hit Barangay Tina-an had prodded the officials of the jail and the City Government of Naga to propose measures like conducting slope stabilization activities.
On this, Valmoria has to expand his horizon a bit. For one, the transfer is only temporary (which should also remind the City of Naga to speed up the slope stabilization works so that the inmates can be brought back to the Naga jail). Secondly, this is an emergency case (Valmoria surely does not want to be blamed if anything happened--like when a landslide does occur--to the inmates while he hesitates in accepting them.
It’s good that JSupt. Reynante Rubio, the warden of the Cebu City Jail, is not taking the same stand as Valmoria. He said he will just wait for the order of his superiors in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology regarding the transfer of the Naga jail inmates. While the city jail is also overcrowded, he said he would find a way to accommodate the inmates from Naga.
Meanwhile, government officials should not stop there. Even if the transfer of the Naga jail inmates is completed, they should address the bigger concern, which is the congestion in our jails. The time for talk is over. Authorities should rather start building more jails and expanding the old ones to end the oppressive situation in our prisons.