‘Justice is not measured by the length of a sentence. It is measured by what happens after the cell door closes.’
THE crisis inside our jails is no longer invisible. The question now is whether we have the resolve to fix it.
In December 2023, the National Decongestion Summit brought judges, jail officials, and civil society groups together in a rare moment of consensus: the system is broken, and delay is no longer an option.
The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), led by Jail Director Ruel Rivera, set a modest benchmark — lowering congestion to 290% by 2028.
Even that figure, still nearly triple capacity, lays bare just how far we still need to go.
Some progress is real. In 2024, over 74,000 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) were released through plea bargaining, parole, and time-served reviews.
The Public Attorney’s Office under Chief Persida Rueda-Acosta is expanding its jail-based legal caravans, as seen in programs like the one at Taguig City Jail in May 2025.
The Supreme Court’s Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations (SPJI), through Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, pushes for faster case resolution and digitized court processes, with major planning events continuing through early 2025.
The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), led by Director General Gregorio Catapang, has begun redistributing inmates from New Bilibid Prison to regional facilities — including the March 2025 transfer of 500 PDLs to San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm — to reduce NBP’s population from 30,000 to 25,000.
For many PDLs and the families still waiting outside prison walls, these efforts, though nascent, offer a glimmer of hope.
During a November 2024 send-off led by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) and BJMP, two recently released PDLs offered raw reflections: one affirmed, “Matagal na naming inaasam-asam… Dumating ang justice para sa amin” — a quiet victory after years behind bars.
Another confessed, “Parang bago kaming ipinanganak, mangangapa kami muli… sana mabigyan ng tulong ang aming mga anak” — voicing how freedom, while hard-earned, does not erase the weight of incarceration or the challenges of reintegration.
But reform must go deeper than numbers.
In July 2024, the Department of Justice under Secretary Boying Remulla, the University of the Philippines Manila, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime signed a landmark agreement: all custodial deaths in BuCor facilities must now undergo forensic autopsy.
A forensic flow system is being built to ensure that no death behind bars is dismissed as routine.
It’s a critical, if delayed, commitment to the truth — echoing the Minnesota Protocol’s mandate that every custodial death demands a thorough, independent investigation.
Yet implementing this across a sprawling, under-resourced penal system remains a challenge — one that demands both political will and rigorous training.
Still, the deeper struggle is cultural.
Despite being a predominantly Christian nation, we continue to favor punishment over restoration.
The Parole and Probation Administration under Administrator Bienvenido Benitez Jr. is quietly shifting that narrative, expanding community-based programs and victim-offender mediation, with a 98.88% compliance rate among supervised clients in 2024.
The Community Service Act (RA 11362), passed in 2019, is finally gaining ground, offering vital alternatives to incarceration for minor offenses.
Instead of contributing to jail congestion for petty crimes, individuals convicted of offenses like slight physical injuries or unjust vexation may now perform unpaid public work at the court’s discretion.
Even the Supreme Court has affirmed this shift, commuting short jail sentences to community service, allowing offenders to contribute constructively to society and avoid the lifelong stigma of incarceration.
This is more than reform. It is rehabilitation in motion.
It aligns with practices in countries like Norway and Germany, where recidivism rates are among the lowest globally.
Their philosophy of “normalization” — treating inmates as citizens, not statistics — offers hard-earned lessons for our own evolving justice system.
And now, a more ambitious vision is taking shape.
Project KILO, whose name signals scale more than acronym, is a ₱163.9 billion Public-Private Partnership that proposes building four new regional prisons to international standards, designed to accommodate 55,000 prisoners.
While still under review and subject to consultation, the initiative seeks to leverage private financing and infrastructure expertise while keeping core corrections under state control.
BuCor is in active consultation with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), led by Dr. Marie Grace Pascua, as of June 2025, regarding land use for these proposed “Supra-Regional Prisons.”
If realized, it would be the largest penal infrastructure investment in Philippine history.
But new walls must be matched by new mindsets.
Without trained personnel, independent oversight, and sustained political will, bigger prisons risk becoming bigger failures.
Securing the necessary resources and establishing oversight bodies free from political interference are the next battles.
The Philippines has joined the Group of Friends of the Mandela Rules — the UN’s benchmark for humane treatment of prisoners.
It’s a crucial commitment to dignity.
But friendship, in this case, must be proven — not by declarations, but by how we treat those we confine.
Civil society groups, instrumental in surfacing this crisis, remain vital to its resolution, monitoring reforms and advocating for those who often go unheard.
Justice is not measured by the length of a sentence. It is measured by what happens after the cell door closes.
