Rights group KARAPATAN slammed Vice President Sara Duterte’s call for the public to show empathy toward persons deprived of liberty (PDLs), saying “it rings hollow when viewed against the Duterte administration’s grim record of human rights violations against detainees, including political prisoners.”
According to the group, there is nothing objectionable about recognizing that all PDLs are entitled to humane treatment and respect for their rights. International human rights standards require that every detained person be treated with dignity, regardless of the charges they face. However, the Vice President’s appeal becomes deeply hypocritical when it is reserved for personalities she herself admits are her friends—individuals detained for plunder, corruption, and other crimes involving the betrayal of public trust.
“Where was this empathy when political prisoners languished in jails under the Duterte administration? Where was this concern when political prisoners died in detention after being denied adequate medical care and humanitarian consideration? The Duterte government had every opportunity to demonstrate compassion toward elderly, sick, and vulnerable detainees. Instead, it responded with repression, and continued to throw government critics to jail,” said Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general.
KARAPATAN also underscored that the Duterte administration’s so-called “war on drugs” severely worsened jail overcrowding and the conditions of PDLs. Data from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) show that the country’s average jail congestion rate stood at around 316% in 2015, before Rodrigo Duterte assumed office. At the height of the drug war, average congestion soared to around 600% in 2018, as thousands of mostly poor drug suspects were crammed into already overcrowded detention facilities. Even by the end of the Duterte administration in 2022, the average jail congestion rate remained at 368%, reflecting the lasting impact of the administration’s punitive anti-drug campaign on the country’s detention facilities.
“Vice President Duterte now speaks of empathy for persons deprived of liberty, but it was the Duterte administration’s sham drug war that packed jails beyond capacity and condemned thousands of detainees to inhumane conditions,” said Palabay.
According to KARAPATAN, 11 political prisoners died in detention under the Duterte administration: Bernabe Ocasla, Marcos Aggalao, Alexander Arias, Ricardo Manili, Francis Romeroso, Adelaida Macusano, Rodrigo Collantes Lazar, Maximo Redota, Joseph Canlas, Jesus Alegre, and Antonio Molina. Palabay said that the situation inside jails clearly was one of the factors that worsened the condition of the already ill political prisoners, which led to their deaths.
The group challenged Vice President Duterte that if she truly believes in compassion for those behind bars, she should publicly support the passage of the Antonio Molina Bill, which seeks to include fragile health and advanced age as grounds for release on recognizance for accused persons, especially those who are poor, wrongfully accused, and victims of unjust arrests and detention. The bill, filed in the House of Representatives last year, seeks to amend the Recognizance Act of 2012.
The proposed measure is named after Antonio Molina, a 67-year-old cancer-stricken peasant leader who was detained at the Puerto Princesa City Jail in Palawan on trumped-up charges. Citing the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling granting bail to then Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, Molina’s lawyers filed an urgent motion for his release because of his advanced cancer and the fact that he posed no flight risk. He died on November 18, 2021, thirty-four days after a judge denied his motion.
“If the Vice President wants to speak of empathy, then let it begin with those who should never have remained behind bars in the first place. This should be the true measure of empathy, that PDLs who are unjustly imprisoned, especially the elderly, the gravely ill, and political prisoners, should ultimately be freed. Empathy cannot be selective. It cannot be reserved only for friends or for those with the power and influence to bend the law despite betraying the Filipino people,” Palabay said.
“And if Vice President Duterte is truly worried about her friends behind bars, she need not worry too much. The constitutional process of impeachment exists, and should she eventually be held accountable under the law, she may well find herself with more opportunities to visit, and perhaps even keep company with them,” Palabay ended.