Human rights alliance KARAPATAN raised fears of a whitewash after the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) merely relieved seven low-ranking corrections officers instead of their superiors who gave the orders on the routinary strip searches being conducted on visitors at the NBP’s Maximum Prison Compound.
The strip search controversy arose after two wives of political prisoners were forced to undergo the humiliating and degrading practice on April 21, 2024 during a visit to their husbands at the NBP. They were subjected to strip search even after they said that they were wives of political prisoners who have never been known to smuggle in any kind of contraband.
“The stringent searches conducted on visitors and the items they bring in mean that contraband can only be smuggled in if prison officials, especially highly placed ones, make this possible,” said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay. “It is corruption that is largely behind the proliferation of contraband inside prisons,” she added, “and pressing down on visitors through strip searches and other inhumane methods can only be a smokescreen to conceal the role that corrupt officials actually play in bringing in contraband and other illegal items.”
Palabay added that such suspicions are moreover fuelled by the fact that the NBP has x-ray machines and sniffing dogs at its disposal, making the strip searches unnecessary.
KARAPATAN supported observations that these forms of strip searches violate the Mandela Rules or the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which include provisions on intrusive searches.
“The NBP could not be more wrong if it thinks that the indignation of human rights groups such as Kapatid that complained about the strip searches will be mollified by the suspension of these seven foot soldiers,” said Palabay. “The NBP must zero in on the central issue of corruption and stop making scapegoats out of visitors, especially families and friends of political prisoners,” she concluded.