The Philippines has the second most crowded jail and prison facilities in the world, second only to Haiti. In June of 2023, the average jail and prison congestion rate for the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) was 351 percent, with some facilities registering more than a 1000 percent. The biggest prison facility in the Philippines is the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) which was designed for 6,000 inmates but now houses 30,000, making it the biggest mega-prison in the world. On top of this, the Philippines has one the of slowliest pace of case disposition where non-bailable accused stay in jail for an average of 3 years before they are found innocent or guilty. There are detained accused who have stayed in detention for 20 years and are still unconvicted. The combination of jail and prison congestion and the delay in the criminal court proceedings have multifaceted impacts to Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs), to the personnel and staff working within the facilities, and to the entire criminal justice system. First, the PDLs are subjected to poor living conditions and their human dignity is compromised. Only around 5 percent of the PDLs have bed bunks and most sleep on the cold floor. The Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR), a constitutional body that is mandated to monitor jail and prison conditions, declared that some facilities are not fit for human habitation. This congestion translates to the prevalence of health problems among the PDLs, where in Metro Manila jails alone, around 40 PDLs die of illnesses every month. Diarrhea, tuberculosis, HIV infections and Covid-19 outbreaks can easily threaten the lives of the PDLs. Coupled with strict protocols that limit inmate movement, the congestion also leads to mental health problems where inmates succumb to “buryong,” a prison term that captures extreme boredom. Additionally, jail and prison congestion limits the number of programs offered to the PDLs where traditional classrooms, visitation rooms and recreational centers are converted to sleeping and living spaces. Thus, PDLs have to compete over spaces, and combined with the precarious mental health conditions, can easily translate to inmate-to-inmate violence. Riots and prison disturbances over the control of the limited resources erupt from time to time. Many PDLs leave the jails or prisons broken and hardened, which eventually elevates their risk of re-offending, thus posing a threat to public safety. Second, jail and prison congestion and case delay also affect the well-being of the personnel and staff working in the facilities. They are similarly exposed to poor working conditions and their physical and mental health are compromised. Many get sick while on duty. They are overworked yet underpaid and underappreciated. The personnel are easily blamed when inmates riot, escape, or engage in illegal behaviors, like sneaking in contraband. Personnel can be transferred to far-flung assignments, placed in “floating positions” and can be charged for dereliction of duties, even when they are not involved. These precarious work environments lead to low morale, job stress and burnout, where personnel and staff are forced to resign and / or transfer to other jobs that pay more and offer less stress. Finally, jail and prison congestion provides opportunities for corruption. Inmates are forced to bring in their own resources, like beddings, construction of their own “tarima” (makeshift bed) or “kubol” (makeshift cubicle) to address the subhuman sleeping conditions. Since these are officially not allowed in the rules, PDLs are forced to offer incentives (called “padulas” or grease money) to induce personnel and staff to relax the rules. While not all personnel and staff are engaged in corrupt behaviors, personnel who do gain popularity among the inmates, develop informal power, and affect the power dynamics among the personnel, which eventually compromises the jail and prison management. Third, jail and prison congestion and case delay affect the entire criminal justice system. Prolonged detention and incarceration translates to additional costs to the government. The government spends 70 pesos for food and 15 pesos for medicine per inmate per day which roughly translates to 6.2 billion pesos a year for the 200,000 PDLs incarcerated nationwide by the Bureau of Jail Management, BuCor, and provincial jails. This tremendous cost deprives the government of a budget that could have been utilized for human services like construction of hospitals and schools. Additionally, congestion and delay of cases translate to inequality of treatment as the more resourced, more connected and more powerful inmates can move the process faster while the less resourced, less connected and less powerful inmates are stuck and relegated to the sidelines. The poorer inmates cannot follow up their cases and cannot avail of the kubols in the facilities, creating an impression that there is a dual set of justice system: one for the rich and one for the poor. Eventually, this induces legal cynicism among the Filipino public, where the citizens do not trust the workings of the criminal justice system. They take matters into their own hands and resort to vigilantism to address their perceived wrongs. Thus, there had been a very strong popular support to the “drug war” that had resulted to the killings of small-time drug users. To be continued... (Editorial cartoon from Sunstar Cebu)
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