By Chito Chavez A human rights group demanded that the strip search at the Bicutan Jail be stopped, labeling it as inhumane and unjustifiable. A Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team member stands guard as inmates are gathered in the courtyard of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) facility in Bicutan as jail officials conduct ‘Oplan Galugad’ that yielded drug paraphernalia and weapons. (Ali Vicoy | Manila Bulletin file photo) Gloria Almonte acting secretary-general of the rights group Hustisya insisted the strip search violates the basic rights of the inmates and visitors including the political prisoners. She called it as hogwash the justification that the strip searches are made to combat the dire situation like the presence of contrabands inside the jail facilities. Hustisya has expressed support for families of political prisoners who decried the conduct of strip search by jail guards at the Special Intensive Care Area-1 (SICA-1), BJMP, in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan, Taguig. Almonte, wife of Dionisio Almonte, a political prisoner at SICA-1, said strip and cavity searches should end following complaints of fellow families of political prisoners that they were subject to such moves in various incidents. “This has been raised so many times, and the SICA-1 management has repeatedly implemented the strip search, using the issue of contrabands inside jail as justification. The conduct of strip search is degrading and, even without intent or on purpose, a form of harassment to visiting families of prisoners,” she said. Almonte said that for many years, political prisoners and their families have repeatedly decried the conduct of strip search to visitors that SICA-1 jail authorities have also arbitrarily implemented on and off. Nona Andaya-Castillo, wife of political prisoner Ferdinand Castillo, has filed a complaint before the Commission on Human Rights after she was subject for strip search on March 30. ”I am a wife of a political prisoner, not a criminal! I vehemently protest this kind of treatment. This is the first time that it happened to me since my first visit to my husband on April 11, 2017. My daughter was once asked to pull down her pants and to flip up her bra,” Castillo said. Almonte said: ”Visitors, especially relatives who have come from faraway provinces and places, submit themselves to strip search because of the need to see and visit their imprisoned relatives. It has become a cycle for jail authorities to perform strip searching at their own whim. Has this ever solved the issue of contrabands? No, because the real problem lies on the proliferation of corrupt practices in the prison system, notwithstanding the inhumane conditions of prisoners who are deprived of their most basic rights of sufficient food, sunning, healthcare, among others. And still, they are untried and unconvicted prisoners!” She added: “If the BJMP officials are resolute in curbing the massive entry of contrabands, how come their system fails to do so despite repeated frisking and strip search of other visitors in the past? What about policing their ranks and investigating the possible complicity of some of their own officials?”