De Lima files bill to unify jail system

Senator Leila de Lima leaves the Muntinlupa regional trial court after attending the hearing for her drug charges. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Senator Leila De Lima filed a bill that would create a unified corrections and jail system in the country.

Under Senate Bill 1879, a new agency called National Commission on Corrections and Jail Management would integrate the services of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP).

BuCor under the Department of Justice and the BJMP under the Department of Local and Interior Government would then be abolished, De Lima said in a statement on Saturday.

“I am filing this bill to help reform the corrections and jail management system in the Philippines,” she said.

She said the condition of the country’s jails violates the 1987 Constitution and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

According to De Lima, the situation of the Philippine jail system has caused jail disturbances, escapes, substandard living, poor sanitation and infectious diseases.

“Severe congestion is also a root cause of prison-based criminality,” she said, citing that other inmates also get mistreated in jails.

De Lima said she has been in “unjust detention” since last year. She has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City since February 2017.

She was accused of presiding over the illegal drugs trade inside the New Bilibid Prison when she was justice secretary during the Aquino administration.