JUSTICE Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla yesterday pushed for the digitization of the carpeta or records of inmates under the care of the Bureau of Corrections.
Carpeta is a Spanish word for file, and is the jargon being used by the BuCor for individual prisoner documents containing details of their cases and reports related to their detention.
Remulla said digitizing the inmates’ records under a Single Carpeta System would eventually help decongest the country’s prison facilities by speeding up the release of inmates with good records while in detention and those who have completed their sentences.
Remulla recounted an incident Wednesday when he visited the offices of the Board of Pardons and Parole and the Parole and Probation Administration in Quezon City where he said he saw BuCor officials manually submitting the inmates’ carpeta.
“If it’s manual the process is time consuming and what would now happen to the inmates?” Remulla said in a joint press conference with Interior Secretary Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos Jr. and top PNP officials at Camp Crame.
“Kailangang maayos ito to address the congestion inside our prison facilities,” he said, adding the overall congestion rate of BuCor-operated prison facilities stands at 330 percent.
“When I visited the Bilibid I went to the maximum security compound where more than 17,000 inmates are detained when it was designed to hold only 6,000,” he said.
The BuCor operates and supervises the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa city and the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City, Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro; San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City, Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Palawan, Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog, Leyte; and the Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Davao del Norte.
These prison facilities hold 46,572 inmates, with the largest in terms of inmate population being the NBP with 28,900, including over 17,000 in its maximum security compound.
The NBP was opened in 1940 and was originally meant to house 10,000 inmates.
Remulla said he has asked President Marcos to appoint a DOJ official who will oversee not only the digitization of inmates’ records but all the files of the department and its sub-agencies.
“I asked the President to appoint an undersecretary for digital infrastructure in the DOJ who will work to digitalize the records from prosecution to corrections,” he said.
Remulla said he also discussed the matter with Public Attorneys Office chief Persida Rueda Acosta, with the latter’s office assisting in the digitalization process by providing manpower.
He also called on non-government organizations working for reforms in the country’s prison system to assist the DOJ and the BuCor on the matter.
Before he stepped down from his post, then DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the department will need at least eight months to digitize the records of prisoners under the BuCor.
The need to have digitized and centralized records of prisoners was spurred by the crisis more than two years ago brought by the release of prisoners due to the Good Conduct Time Allowance or GCTA that saw the DOJ scrambling for information and data about time spent in detention of BuCor prisoners.
The flawed records led to the release of an erroneous list of 1,914 heinous crime convicts who were either hunted and or asked to return to detention.
One of the prisoners who nearly gained freedom due to the GCTA confusion was former Calauan, Laguna mayor Antonio Sanchez, who was convicted for the rape-slay of UP Los Banos students Eileen Sarmenta and Alan Gomez.
The resulting furor led the DOJ to conduct a review of Sanchez’s detention and a subsequent Senate investigation, which found problems with the BuCor records.
Former President Duterte also sacked then BuCor Director General Nicanor Faeldon due to the furor.
