Presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said he sees nothing wrong with inmates being stripped while they are searched for contraband at the Cebu provincial jail.
At the same time, however, Panelo said the photos should not have been made public.
“Personally? If we are talking about security, it was a necessary move,” Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo told state-run dzRB radio.
Panelo said that the strip-search may have violated the prisoners’ right to privacy.
“They should have been more careful that the naked bodies of the prisoners would not be exposed in public. They should also be careful that the photographs of the naked prisoners would not be released in public,” the President’s lawyer said.
“That’s what they should be more careful about because they are already violating a person’s privacy. But if it was just in jail and they are just the ones doing the search and seeing them, I think it’s okay for security purposes,” he added.
Photos showing hundreds of prisoners in a Cebu jail sitting naked while being searched for contraband have triggered intense criticism amid possible violations of their rights.
Photos released by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and provincial police showed the inmates sitting naked and cross legged in neat rows on the concrete quadrangle, illuminated by spotlights, as armed police guard them.
The inmates of the Cebu provincial jail were woken before dawn on Tuesday, herded into the jail’s quadrangle and forced to strip while anti-drug agents, police and military searched their cells.
Commission on Human Rights Commissioner Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana had said that her office will investigate the raid, which was led by officials of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
Gana cited the United Nations Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which state that “intrusive searches, including strip and body cavity searches, should be undertaken only if absolutely necessary.”
The probe will seek to determine who was behind the stripping of inmates, and come up with recommendations to prevent such incidents from happening again, Gana said.
“We seek guidance from PDEA as part of the process of our investigation so that our inspection of the incident will not just be one-sided,” she said.