The Commission on Human Rights on Thursday called on the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, and the Philippine National Police to look after the welfare of their prison populations against infection from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In a statement, lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said the agecny through the interim National Preventive Mechanisms reached out to different detention and correctional facilities to help mitigate the risks of COVID-19.
She said they wrote BJMP’s Bohol District Jails, Quezon City Jail and Manila City Jail; Philippine National Police’s station commanders; Caloocan City’s Bahay Pag-asa, and Bureau of Corrections’ San Ramon Farm in Zambonga City to remind to implement physical distancing among persons deprived of liberty and even jail personnel.
“The INMP writes, that while there are recommendations from the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture (SPT) and the International Committee of the Red Cross requiring interagency actions, there are measures that wardens and officers in charge of places of detention may already undertake, such as implementing physical distancing among PDLs and other personnel; alternative visitation arrangements, including internet or telephone communications; information drives on ways to combat the spread of the contagion as well as attending to psychosocial concerns of all persons in jails, prisons, and other places of detention — PDLs, staff, officers, and wardens alike,” the CHR statement read.
De Guia said that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the prison populations are one the most vulnerable given the conditions of detention—typically with poor hygiene, dramatic overcrowding and poor healthcare infrastructure within such facilities.
“Such situation, if not addressed, may result to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment, which goes against the country’s commitment to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UN CAT) and its Optional Protocol (OPCAT),” she added.
Having ratified the OPCAT in 2012, the government is mandated to establish a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) through legislation, “but has yet to do so,” she said.
In 2016, the CHR sought to establish the INPM to usher the government’s compliance to the said convention and its optional protocol.
“The CHR, through the INPM, sees this opportunity for improving focus on broader policy reforms and seeking new levels of engagement with authorities in making services in prisons or other detention authorities more humane and respectful of human rights during and beyond the pandemic,” De Guia said.