The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) joins the Catholic Church in the Philippines in the observance of the 33rd National Prison Awareness Week from 19 to 25 October 2020. The theme for this year is “Restoring Hope and Healing during this Time of Pandemic through God’s Transforming Unconditional Love.”
Protecting communities from infectious diseases means protecting everyone, especially those who are not as able to protect themselves. Vulnerable populations, such as persons deprived of liberty, are often most at risk during public health emergencies. They have fewer protections from an outbreak, and may face more significant fallout from any disruptions in daily life.
The combination of this new health emergency with the structural existence of high levels of prison overcrowding in the Philippines sounds an alarm that must be addressed immediately.
This extreme lack of space inside these facilities is compounded by serious deficiencies in health, food, and safety, which generates unsanitary environments where it is easy to spread diseases. Such situation may also induce conflicts among prisoners themselves and between prisoners and prison staff due to competing spaces and scarce resources.
Numerous international organisations have been pushing for a demographic reduction in prison, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture. But in doing so, the Commission reminds the government that pardons and clemencies must be granted fairly and based on objective and compassionate grounds—prioritising the elderly, the sick, and those who have committed minor offences.
It is high time to adopt these international recommendations not only because it constitutes legal duty, but because the problem is a global phenomenon and this is the ethical imperative.
As the lead agency in the Interim National Preventive Mechanism, the Commission consistently recommends measures to combat all forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment inside prisons. Now that social distancing and isolation are strictly implemented within penitentiaries, the right to information and communication between prisoners and their families must be fully recognised to ease anxiety and fear between the two parties.
The CHR, in this regard, urges both the House of Representatives and Senate to enact the National Preventive Mechanism Bill to improve the treatment and the conditions of the persons deprived of their liberty, taking into consideration the relevant UN standards.
Despite the continued rapid spread of the virus, the Commission emphasises that due process rights, including speedy trial requirements and other components of the State’s criminal justice system, must never be suspended nor be implemented subjectively.
The multitude of unprecedented issues confronting places of penal institutions during a pandemic pose a critical question on how we view our prison population and must spark systemic change in reimagining crime control and prison management in the country. At the end of the day, crimes must be punished, but there remains an inherent obligation of the government to uphold everyone’s dignity, especially those who are eyed to be reformed. ###