The administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has fulfilled its promise to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to release by June 2023 a total of 5,000 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) from the prison facilities of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).
Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla disclosed the fulfilment of the promise during the meeting of the Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules held in Vienna, Austria last Monday, May 22.
“Since our assumption into office in July 2022, we have strongly urged the various offices in our corrections system – the Parole and Probation Administration, the Board of Pardons and Parole, and the Bureau of Corrections – to speed-up the evaluation and processing of PDLs’ records and releases,” Remulla said.
“Thus, as of today (May 22, 2023) ahead of the June 2023 deadline we gave before the UN Human Rights Council last year, we have discharged of a total of 5,982 PDLs on various grounds, namely: completion of service of sentence, parole, or service of minimum of imposed sentence,” he disclosed.
He said that the DOJ “also recommended to the President the release of 533 PDLs who are qualified for executive clemency.”
The promise to release 5,000 PDLs by June 2023 was made during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Philippines held in Geneva, Switzerland in November 2022.
Remulla said the Philippine government’s efforts to improve the corrections system are “consistent with the Nelson Mandela Rules and other applicable and relevant UN standards.”
The protection of the rights of PDLs had been laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. In 1955, the first UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders adopted the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
In 2015, the UN General Assembly expanded the rules, now known as Nelson Mandela Rules, in honor of the South African anti-apartheid activist and politician.
The Rules "are based on an obligation to treat all prisoners with respect for their inherent dignity and value as human beings, and to prohibit torture and other forms of ill-treatment."
The meeting of the Group of Friends of the Nelson Mandela Rules was a side event at the 32nd session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.
In his speech during the meeting, Remulla also said the Philippine government has “started the regionalization of prison facilities”, the establishment of “three state of-the-art facilities that will house PDLs who are classified as high-level offenders,” and the transfer of prisoners from the country’s main penitentiary, the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
He said the DOJ’s Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) has been tasked “to review the records of their clients and effect their immediate release and to continuously provide legal representation to PDLs still under trial.
At the same time, he said the government – through BuCor -- continues to implement the five reformation programs for inmates, namely: moral and spiritual program; education and training program; work and livelihood program; sports and recreation program; and behavior modification program.
“International standards on prison management, the Nelson Mandela Rules included, dictate that deaths in custody must be investigated. Thus, we led the investigation last year of the death of more than one hundred inmates of the New Bilibid Prison. More importantly, the Department also caused the investigation and the eventual prosecution of the highest officer for murder and other serious offenses,” he said.
Lately, he pointed out that President Marcos ordered the decongestion of the country’s correction facilities.
“For this purpose, an Inter-Agency Technical Working Group composed of the Department of Justice, Department of Budget and Management, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of National Defense and the Bureau of Corrections was created to study remedies to address prison congestion,” he said.