Laudable gov’t programs

One is the Veterans Access to Lifetime Optimized Healthcare (Valor) Clinic for military veterans, retirees, and their dependents. The other is the legal aid program for persons deprived of liberty (PDL). The first will be operationalized in three phases under the auspices of the Department of National Defense and the second under the Department of the Interior and Local Government through the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

These programs are commendable, however belatedly they may have been launched.

More than 400,000 soldiers, veterans, and their dependents can avail of outpatient healthcare services at Valor clinics in military treatment facilities and installations across the country.

It started off as a project of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City, which had been over-burdened by annual visits reaching 260,000, yet it could only cater to about seven percent of its target beneficiaries, hence the Valor program.

What medical services can they avail of? These include immunization, health screenings, early diagnosis, laboratory tests, X-rays, CT scans, MRI, and telemedicine consultations. A continuing effort, it will be expanded to military hospitals in the Visayas and Mindanao.

The pilot clinics are at Fernando Air Base in Batangas, the Northern Luzon Command in Tarlac, Fort Bonifacio General Hospital in Taguig City, Southern Luzon Command in Quezon, and Camp Riego de Dios in Cavite City. Next up will be clinics at military commands and station hospitals in Palawan, Davao City, Zamboanga City, Mactan, Bataan, Zamboanga del Sur, Capiz, Maguindanao and Samar.

Whereas, the BJMP’s paralegal program is a key intervention to address jail congestion. It has helped release over 85,000 PDLs in one year alone (June 2024 to May 2025).

Under the program, PDLs gain timely access to legal remedies for their early release. After completing their sentences, a total of 16,311 prisoners were emancipated while about 15,085 were transferred to facilities of the Bureau of Corrections, provincial jails, drug treatment centers, and youth detention facilities.

It granted time allowance for good conduct to 11,139 PDLs; released 8,825 on bail; and freed 8,280 on probation. Moreover, 7,431 were acquitted, while 6,342 had their cases provisionally dismissed, and 5,667 cases were permanently dismissed. Another 3,570 PDLs were set free on recognizance or placed under the custody of a qualified individual to ensure their court appearance. Instead of jail time, 349 PDLs were ordered to perform community service and 23 were released on parole.

Along with these ongoing decongestion efforts, the BJMP is constructing 43 new prison buildings nationwide with perimeter fences and standardized functional areas to enhance overall detention conditions. This program stemmed from the congestion in the country’s jails having reached 298 percent across 484 facilities with a holding capacity of a total of 115,791 PDLs.

With the current number of PDLs effectively reduced, congestion in jails has been eased, giving the released prisoners a new lease on life.

It must be a milestone in jail history — reducing the number of PDLs from a high of 85,000 in a year’s time. These developments exemplify solid proof that through sustained efforts and institutionalized schemes, PDLs may be invariably granted parole, recognizance, otherwise acquitted, or released automatically after the service of sentence, awarded time allowance, sent to drug treatment centers or youth detention facilities, released on bail, and have their cases provisionally or permanently dismissed.

These wide-ranging untapped legal remedies may even reach a final point when all this “human warehousing” becomes a thing of the past.

It will be the best of possible worlds to see our jails and prisons with only a handful of detainees, inmates, and prisoners subsidized by the government. Verily, good governance leaves a footprint for like agencies to follow suit.

Nationwide access to health care for veterans, soldiers, and dependents together with an intervention program for x number of PDLs reflect a job well done, Mr. President.