Jail congestion eases but remains at 281%

The government has held two decongestion summits in an effort to ease overcrowding in jails nationwide, but the problem remains.

Despite jail decongestion being identified as a government priority through interagency cooperation, efforts have yielded only minimal gains, with the national jail congestion rate dropping by just 11 percentage points as of August 2026.

The latest figures were revealed by Interior and Local Government (DILG) Senior Undersecretary Jon Paulo V. Salvahan during the opening day of the two-day Justice Sector Coordinating Council (JSCC) Summit at The Manila Hotel in Manila on Monday.

Salvahan said the national jail congestion rate declined from 292 percent to 281 percent as of August but acknowledged that the figure remains “far too high.”

The first National Decongestion Summit was held on 6 and 7 December 2025 at the Diamond Hotel in Malate, Manila, under the theme "Decongest and Reintegrate: A Conference to Unlock Solutions to Jail and Prison Overcrowding."

The event marked the first time all three branches of the Philippine government — the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary — united to systematically address prison overcrowding.

The Second National Decongestion Summit was held from 21 to 23 January 2026 and resulted in concrete, long-term structural, policy and legislative commitments aimed at sustainably addressing jail and prison overcrowding.

The primary achievements and focal areas developed during the 2026 summit included long-term legislative proposals, criminal code reforms, court procedure and case flow reforms, custodial hearings, systemic accountability, democratizing good conduct time allowance (GCTA) computations and gender-responsive tracking.

Salvahan stressed that no single government institution can address jail congestion on its own.

“No single institution can solve these problems alone,” he said.

Salvahan called for closer coordination and information-sharing among agencies involved in the justice system.

He said the DILG would continue working with local government units and JSCC partners to strengthen existing Justice Zones and establish more across the country.

The JSCC Summit seeks to improve coordination, cooperation and communication among justice sector institutions and enhance the overall efficiency of the justice system.

The JSCC is composed of the Supreme Court, Department of Justice and DILG.

It was established through a joint declaration in 2010 and later institutionalized under Chapter 13 of the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028.