CROWDED. Dark and dingy. Stinky.
These words aptly illustrate the state of the country’s jails. A space not suitable for the thousands of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs), or inmates, who are behind bars. People who, while they have committed crimes of varying magnitudes, deserve a “home” that would nurture their bodies, minds, and souls.
But the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) has taken crucial steps to address this decades-long problem.
The BuCor has accepted the challenge that has long plagued the country’s prison system and bedeviled its previous leaderships: digitization of the carpetas of PDLs and decongesting the seven prison and penal farms under its supervision, including the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
BuCor Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr., who assumed the post in 2022, has directed superintendents of the NBP and the six other prisons and penal farms to ensure the records of the inmates under their care are updated so they would know when the PDLs are set to be released or the date of the completion of their prison sentences.
The digitization of the inmates’ carpetas and the construction of state-of-the-art prison facilities are part of the overall plan of the BuCor and the DOJ to decongest jails and make the prison system more humane.
Aside from the NBP, the BuCor also operates the Correctional Institute for Women (CIW) in Mandaluyong City, Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro, San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City, Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Palawan, Leyte Regional Prison in Abuyog in Leyte, and the Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Davao del Norte.
All in all, these facilities hold over 50,000 PDLs as of January this year, although their total capacity is only around 12,000, or an average congestion rate of 310 percent.
“Gusto ko lahat ng PDLs, pag tinanong mo kung kailan sila lalaya, alam nila ang isasagot nila (All PDLs should be able to answer when asked for their release date),” Catapang said when sought for an update on the digitization of PDL records.
Catapang’s immediate boss, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, ordered the BuCor to speed up the digitization of carpetas despite initial resistance.
“It’s the only way that we can really make things visible online for the Bureau of Pardons and Parole and the Parole and Probation Administration,” Remulla said.
“It’s not a new thing, but for things that have been done for years as manual, we are imposing this as a requirement,” he also said.
The DOJ, through the Parole and Probation Administration, also piloted last year the Probation Information System, through which it can digitalize, monitor, safekeep, replicate and transmit to the courts and law enforcement authorities, data and information pertaining to its supervision, rehabilitation and monitoring of probationers and parolees.
CARPETA
Carpeta is a Spanish word for file. It is the jargon used by the BuCor for records of individual prisoners, which contain details of their cases and reports related to their detention.
Remulla said digitizing the inmates’ records under a Single Carpeta System (SCS) would help decongest the country’s prison facilities by speeding up the processing of papers of inmates seeking pardon or parole, or those who have completed their sentences.
To recall, before he stepped down from his post, former Justice secretary Menardo Guevarra said the department will need at least eight months to digitize the records of prisoners under the BuCor.
Guevarra said then that the SCS, which is part of the National Justice Information System, would “expedite the releases of prisoners and, hopefully, decongest” the country’s jail facilities.
The need to have a digitized and centralized records of prisoner was further spurred by the crisis more than four years ago brought about 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, among others, of BuCor prisoners.
The flawed records of the BuCor led to the release of an erroneous list of 1,914 heinous crime convicts, who were eventually hunted and or were asked to return to detention by the authorities.
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 Baños students Eileen Sarmenta and Alan Gomez.
ONGOING
Catapang said scanning of the inmates’ carpetas is still ongoing.
“As of Jan. 11, 2024, 43,934 was completed out of 50,000. Target completion of this project is on Feb. 16, 2024,” Catapang said.
“Even though this project has not yet been fully completed, the PDPD’s (PDL Documents Processing Division) disclosed that this digitization aids in BuCor’s decongestion plan as this will give easy access to the Management, Screening, and Evaluation (MSEC) of PDL documents in just one click, which is needed in their deliberations and which will result in the expeditious process for the grant of GCTA to all qualified PDLs,” he added.
Catapang said that from Feb. 21, 2023 to Jan. 11, 2024, the BuCor has received 45,949, carpeta copies, of which 43,934 are already completed and digitized.
“Through the manual system, the BuCor has already released 7,989 PDLs from November 2022 to January 2024,” he added.
STATE OF THE ART PRISONS
The digitization of the inmates’ carpetas and the construction of state-of-the-art prison facilities are part of the overall plan of the BuCor and the DOJ to decongest jails and make the prison system more humane.
The “long-term and game changer” solutions to the problems confronting the correctional system, according to Remulla, include construction of P4 billion worth of modern jail facilities to house heinous crime convicts, transfer of the NBP and the CIW to other areas outside of Metro Manila, and establishment of regional prisons, each housing only 2,500 inmates to prevent overcrowding.
Catapang has said they will seek permission from Malacañang to allow them to build three jail facilities to house heinous crime convicts in three military reservations — in Fort Magsaysay in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija; Camp Peralta in Jamindan, Capiz; and Camp Kibaritan in Kalilangan, Bukidnon.
Republic Act 11928, which was enacted in September 2022, provides for the establishment of a separate facility for inmates convicted of committing heinous crimes.
