DAVAO City Rep. Paolo Duterte and Benguet City Rep, Eric Yap wants additional penal penitentiary facilities under the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) to decongest the country’s prisons.
Citing the “substandard and inadequate” jail facilities in the country resulting in over congestion and subhuman conditions of the prisoners, the two lawmakers filed House Bill No.8071 seeking to establish an additional penitentiary system to provide prisoners decent and humane accommodation.
“The Constitution vehemently opposes the use of substandard or inadequate penal facilities under subhuman conditions. Despite the said mandate, there are only seven existing correctional facilities in the country which are under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Corrections,” Duterte stressed.
The seven facilities are the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City; Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City; Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan; Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro; San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City; Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog, Leyte, and the Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Panabo, Davao.
The measure, titled Regional Penitentiaries Act, wants to establish and operate additional penal farms in Regions I, II, III, V, VI, VIII, IX, X, XII, XIII, and the Cordillera Administrative Region, thereby decongesting existing penal institutions, accommodating the increasing number of inmates committed to the BuCor, and giving due credence to the right to decent accommodations of the prisoners.
Yap said despite the seven correction facilities are spread out across the country, congested prisons are still among the pertinent issues faced by the justice system.
“The World Prison Brief still named the Philippines as ‘the most overcrowded prison system in the world’ with 215,000 prisoners overfilling the jails and prisons more than five times the jail or prison’s official capacity,” he said.
The system has been suffering from long-term neglect, he added.
“Moreover, many of the country’s jails fail to meet the minimum United Nations standards given the jails’ cases of inadequate food, poor nutrition and unsanitary conditions, according to Human Rights Watch,” he said.
He said it is the responsibility of the State to value human dignity and guarantee full respect for human rights regardless of any wrongful act or omission done.
The government must adopt the mandate under Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”