CITIZENS' Battle Against Corruption (Cibac) Partylist Representative and House Deputy Speaker Bro. Eddie Villanueva called on the government to include in its Covid-19 recovery plan the expansion of existing prison facilities, or better yet, the construction of new ones in order to address the awful congestion in the country's jails.
The Cibac lawmaker made the statement following the reported confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections in Quezon City and Cebu City jails last week due to overcrowding in the said facilities where social distancing is hard, if not impossible, to be implemented.
"Cibac hopes that the government will include in its Covid-19 recovery plan or in its FY 2021 National Expenditure Program, at the very least, a sizeable budgetary allocation that will significantly improve the conditions of our jails. Especially that a 'new normal' conduct of living includes social distancing and strict adherence to proper hygiene is expected to be observed at all facets of communal living, uncrowding our prison facilities is a must to make sure our jails will not be hotbeds or epicenter of infections in its communities and that our persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) will be protected from contracting Covid-19 or any communicable disease for that matter," added Villanueva.
"The problem of our terribly crammed full jails is an overdue assignment on the part of the government. As of 2019, penal facilities under either the Bureau of Corrections (Bucor) or the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) has an average congestion rate of not less than 300 percent. With or without the Covid-19 health emergency situation, but more so now that we are in the midst of a pandemic where social distancing is key to survival, this problem deserves no less than the serious attention and funding plan of the government," he added.
Latest data from the Bucor show that the seven penal farm under it has an average congestion rate of 314 percent, meaning a prison houses inmates three-times its capacity. Among the most jam-packed are the New Bilibid Prison with 353 percent congestion rate, Mindanao Correctional Institute for Women (CIW-Mindanao) and Davao Prison and Penal Farm which has congestion rates of 467 percent and 388 percent, respectively.
The BuCor-supervised prisons are for those sentenced to serve three-year imprisonment or more.
BJMP Director Allan Iral, for his part, said that as of December 2019, the 467 municipal, city and district jails under its supervision nationwide has an average congestion rate of 438 percent, BJMP-supervised jails house inmates sentenced to less than three-year imprisonment or those awaiting decision from municipal/city courts.
"Though they are offenders of laws and must be penalized according to our justice system, life for our PDLs is not yet over and there is always the ever-present opportunity for change of life. Yes, they are deprived of liberty but they must not be denied of dignity and right to health, sanitation and humane environment. We must obey God's admonition in giving respect to the dignity of human life. As long as they are alive, there is always a ray of hope for them to be recrafted as productive members of our society again," the lawmaker said. (PR)