Audit: 341 of 488 jails ‘congested’
More than half of jail facilities in the Philippines were operating beyond their intended design capacities, leaving detainees exposed to substandard living environments and health and biosecurity risks, a fresh Commission on Audit (CoA) report showed.
State auditors said 341 facilities exhibited “critical congestion rates” in 2025, violating the prescribed 4.7 square meters per inmate under the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology’s (BJMP) policies.
Based on its annual audit, CoA said the BJMP was accommodating a total of 113,937 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) across its 488 jail facilities, which cover 240,307 square meters of land.
The agency said that overcrowding indicated the need to construct an additional 295,197 square meters of jail infrastructure to address the issue.
Facilities in Regions III, IV-A, V, VII, the Negros Island Region and the National Capital Region exhibited the highest congestion rates in the country.
Cebu jail, most congested
In Region VII, in particular, the ideal capacity of PDLs based on the jail facilities it had was only 4,578, however, it was found that there were 15,717 detainees in the area.
The NCR and Region IV-A, meanwhile, had similarly high variance when it came to their jail populations and ideal capacities at 13,901 and 13,741, respectively.
It was further disclosed that the most congested facility in the country was Consolacion Municipal Jail in Cebu, which had a congestion rate of 2,000 percent.
State auditors noted that the average congestion rate had dropped in recent years, from 367 percent in 2022 to 279 percent in 2025.
Even with these findings, CoA said the percentages still far exceeded what local and international laws prescribe.
“While this positive trend indicates progress in institutional decongestion strategies, the current baseline remains significantly elevated above prescribed humanitarian thresholds,” the report indicated.
The agency said overcrowding in jail facilities is a “critical bottleneck” to the BJMP’s ability to provide PDLs with essential needs such as food, medical care, and rehabilitation supplies.
CoA explained that the bureau was hindered in performing its dual statutory mandate of humane safekeeping and comprehensive inmate development because of the identified structural limitations.
State auditors noted that the BJMP had already undertaken initiatives to address severe congestion in its facilities, including 43 construction projects intended to provide spatial relief in the most overcrowded areas.