From as high as 600 percent, the congestion rate in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)-run jail facilities is now down to 370 percent.

BJMP spokesperson Chief Inspector Jayrex Bustinera reported this during a press briefing on Friday, March 17.

“Sa ngayon po, meron po tayong 370-percent congestion rate sa buong Pilipinas. Ito po ay mababa na. Kung matatandaan po natin, mula 2018 galing po tayo sa 600-percent congestion rate (At present, we have a 370-percent congestion rate in the whole Philippines. If we can recall, from 2018 there was a 600-percent congestion rate),’’ Bustinera said.

Bustinera stated that the BJMP continues to address its congestion rate woes by working on building larger jail facilities and expanding decongestion measures through paralegal assistance and good conduct time allowance (GCTA).

In the same briefing, Bustinera said that the BJMP launched a library educational program which seeks to encourage and provide its persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) the opportunity to engage in learning activities.

He noted that the plan is to implement the PDL educational learning program in libraries in all of the BJMP-supervised jail facilities in the country.

But only 13 BJMP jail facilities were chosen to initially implement the program due to budgetary constraints.

Dubbed as the “Read Your Way Out: Advancing Prison Reform through Libraries for Lifelong Learning in Places of Detention”, the program was made in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC.

In a statement, the BJMP explained that the project will support the creation of new jail libraries and the provision of books and equipment, with the overall aim to provide learning opportunities for personal development, well-being, and, ultimately, rehabilitation of PDLs.

In addition, the BJMP noted that it aims to incorporate reading activities as one of the options for the PDLs to earn Time Allowance for Study, Teaching, and Mentoring (TASTM).

The TASTM reduces the time of sentences of the PDLs thereby facilitating the jail decongestion, through early release coupled with rehabilitation grounded in improved education and vocational skills.

“Jail libraries shall be composed of 20 percent legal resources, 30 percent vocational resources, 40 percent fiction and non-fiction and 10 percent children books for family visitors,’’ the BJMP noted.

To implement the said project, a technical working group (TWG) was constituted composed of officials from the BJMP and the UNODC. The National Library of the Philippines (NLP) was also included as part of the group for the purposes of providing their technical expertise in terms of library management.

The creation of libraries in jails and prisons is inspired by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which ensures the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

The same is reiterated by the Nelson Mandela Rules, in rule 64 which specifically says that every prison shall have a library for the use of all categories of prisoners, adequately stocked with both recreational and instructional books, and prisoners shall be encouraged to make full use of it.