The Commission on Human Rights is now looking into a complaint of a “strip search” of those who would want to visit their relatives at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
Lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said the agency had received a complaint letter from a certain Jimmylisa Badayos, who detailed how she went through a strip search despite feeling degraded just so she could see her partner—Calixto Vistal—at the maximum security compound last Dec. 29.
“Relative to the complaint, CHR is committing to look into this allegations of human dignity being violated, further checking the details of the allegation toward improving safety protocols, in the national penitentiary and jails elsewhere in the country,” she said.
“As such, we remind the government, especially the officers and personnel at NBP and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, to strictly enforce its own guidelines in conducting body searches for jail visitors, most especially in ensuring that such searches are reasonable and carried out with utmost respect to human dignity,” she added.
Citing the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners or the Nelson Mandela Rules, strip and body cavity searches must only be done if completely necessary, and that these should not be used to harass, intimidate or unnecessarily intrude upon a prisoner’s privacy, De Guia said.
Only qualified health-care professionals or those trained by health-care professionals must be the ones to conduct body cavity searches, she cited.
She, however, said a body search is important to ensure the safety of persons deprived of liberty and the other persons inside the jail facility, and to prevent the entry of contrabands.