A support group for so-called political prisoners asked the Supreme Court (SC) to adopt the proposed "Writ of Kalayaan" as a legal remedy against "inhuman punishment" suffered by detainees inside "substandard" jails.

Advocacy group Kapatid, in a statement issued on Friday, Oct. 20, rejected the opposition of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) against the adoption of the "Writ of Kalayaan."

Through Spokesperson Fides Lim, Kapatid (brother or sister) invoked "the primordial constitutional rights to life, to health, and against cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment that are violated by substandard conditions of imprisonment."

Thus, it said it "firmly urges the Supreme Court to fast-track the promulgation of the 'Writ of Kalayaan'".

The adoption of the writ was proposed in 2020 by SC Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen who said the writ is needed “when all the requirements to establish cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment are present.”

Under the proposed writ, there would be "a continuing order that those in charge of the custody of the persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) to comply with the court-sanctioned plan to rectify or improve the substandard or inadequate conditions of prison facilities within a reasonable time and if not met, an order will be issued for the release of the PDLs, either thru bail, recognizance or probation, following the order of precedence until the facility have been brought to a humane level."

Among other extra-ordinary legal remedies, the judicial system now has the writs of Habeas Corpus (on illegal detention), Amparo (on other rights aside from illegal detention), Habeas Data (on privacy of communication), and Kalikasan (on environment protection).

In its opposition, BuCor Director General Gregorio Pio P. Catapang Jr. told the SC in a position paper that “the problems of congestion is now being addressed by the Bureau on the basis of the passage of two laws, namely: Republic Act No. 10575, the Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013 which provides for the modernization, professionalization and restructuring of the BuCor, and RA11928 which provides for the establishment of a separate facility for PDLs convicted of heinous crimes.”

Catapang said that BuCor "has formulated a five-year Development and Modernization Plan 2023-2028 to build regional prison facilities to decongest and modernize the existing penal institution and accommodate the increasing number of PDLs committed to the agency.”

He also told the that the plan includes “reconfiguration of all prison facilities to house only 2,500 PDLs per prison compound to address congestion and make our prison compounds world class standard prison facilities.”

“It is most ironic that the head of the Bureau of Correction opposes the extraordinary remedy of the 'Writ of Kalayaan' that would free the elderly and very sick prisoners and decongest prisons when the inmate mortality rate in the Philippines is one of the highest in the world,” Lim stated.

Citing BuCor’s own records, Lim said that “1,166 of 48,501 prisoners died in 2021” which meant that there were at least three PDLs who died every day that year.

“This translates into an inmate mortality rate of 2.4 percent, which is way higher than the 0.2 percent universally accepted figures for prison deaths,” she lamented.

Lim also learned that in 2020, during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic “BuCor recorded 1,082 deaths in all of its seven prisons and penal farms nationwide or up by 43.5 percent from the 754 deaths in 2019.”

“We have 74 political prisoners who have been convicted and are now languishing in the death traps that are the BuCor facilities. They are among the 778 political prisoners nationwide who should not even be in prison for a single day were it not for trumped-up charges,” she alleged.