Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla bewailed the sorry state of all seven Bureau of Correction jail facilities in the country which are 250 percent overcrowded.
"There are around 30,000 people in facilities designed for only 9,500," Remulla said in an interview with Daily Tribune's digital show "Straight Talk" on Tuesday.
The figure, Remulla said, does not count detention prisoners under the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology whose facilities are also congested with inmates on their pre-trial and/or trial proper of their cases.
"We're only talking about the correctional system. So, you can imagine the kind of life that they have to live there," he said.
Remulla was referring to BuCor's operating units nationwide, as follows: (1) New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa; (2) Corrections Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City; (3) Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa, Palawan; (4) Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro; (5) San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City; (6) Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog, Leyte; and (7) Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Panabo City, Davao del Norte.
It is for this reason that Remulla has rallied to decongest jails.
"We have to reconsider those who are aging already, or who have reached an age where they can be harmless to society. Of course, there's always an exception with the senior citizens, the only ones we will not free are those who are actually guilty of sexual offenses," he added.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., he said, is a very compassionate president who cares for Filipinos and wants compassionate justice for the country.
Family as support group
"Our stance on release (of prisoners) is really aimed at trying to unite the persons with their families as early as possible. Because we have a support group here in the Philippines called family," he said.
Other countries, he added, may not have it but in our country, it is believed that family can do a lot of things for those who go astray with the law.
"The compassionate justice is there because it's the only way to live. And we Filipinos are very happy people. And we don't want to dwell on the sense of each other. And if they can be forgiven, or it can be forgotten, so be it," Remulla added.
He said the President wants the DoJ to reconsider the way it runs the Penology, correctional and jail systems.
He said more than 5,000 inmates within the BJMP system have already been released.
"But we need to do that more because our jails are just so full. It's very inhumane to keep people in such a bad state," he said.
The DoJ, he said, is now working for the executive clemency of around 600 prisoners in time for Christmas.
"We're asking the President to grant clemency to many people. We want to grant clemency to more than 500 people, maybe 600 people this coming Christmas, but we are releasing again a new batch for December," he added.
Deserving inmates
The BuCor releases deserving inmates on a monthly basis while the BJMP does it every week.
The release of senior citizens 70 years old and older is part of the plan similar to the executive order of then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Remulla revealed that minimum-security prisoners will be moved to Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, and the minimum-security compound inside the NBP will serve as senior citizens' pre-departure area while awaiting the processing of their release.
"We will look at the wisdom of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime study on a fact throughout the world, that 95 to 97% of the people above 62 do not wish to commit crimes anymore," he added.
Meanwhile, some 232 persons deprived of liberty at the CIW are set to be released after they have been found eligible for executive clemency.
The BuCor said of the 232 PDLs eligible for executive clemency, 150 of them are elderly who had been interviewed by the Board of Pardons and Parole on 2 December.
BPP Deputy Chairperson Natividad D. Dizon, a retired judge, led the interview of the PDLs.
With ALVIN MURCIA
@tribunephl_alvi