Formal adherence to a set of international rules has never guaranteed substantial compliance. The Philippine government has been a signatory to numerous international human rights accords and has even enacted domestic laws against torture, enforced disappearance and violations of international humanitarian law, but violations continue mainly because of a prevalent culture of impunity shielding the wrongdoers.
News that the Philippines has joined a group of countries supportive of the Nelson Mandela Rules, or the UN Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners will not necessarily translate to better conditions for the country’s hundreds of thousands of prisoners and detainees.
As of June 2023, the congestion rate in Bureau of Corrections facilities was at 421%, putting 51,561 individuals in facilities with capacity for only 12,251 individuals. In Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) facilities, the congestion rate was at 367% with 127,031 detainees cramped in facilities with capacity for only 6,702 individuals.
One year later, these figures have not had much improvement, with the BJMP’s congestion rate for January to May 2024 at 323%.
The Philippine government has been goading detainees to avail of plea bargaining and probation to ease the congestion rate, measures that even innocent detainees often resort to in order to get out of jail faster rather than risk years fighting it out in the courts. At the same time, the country’s prosecutors enjoy an abnormally high conviction rate, smothering the issue of how many had been wrongfully arrested. In the end, the releases do not make much of a dent on the congestion rate because more and more detainees keep coming in.
The Marcos Jr. regime is approaching the problem of congestion from the wrong end. For starters, it must stop arresting the innocent. It must also stop criminalizing political dissent.
There are currently 755 political prisoners languishing in jails and prisons nationwide, 147 of whom were arrested under the present regime. One hundred and three (102) of them are elderly and 90 suffer from various ailments.
These political prisoners do not deserve to stay a minute longer in jail. They must be released. The elderly and ailing among them must be released forthwith on humanitarian grounds.
Any reforms with the ends of justice in mind must address the plight of political prisoners, who are the victims of one injustice after another.