Home for Christmas, thanks to SC’s ‘Judgment Day’

A Quezon City Jail inmate gladly shows the markings on his arm indicating the date of his release, after his case and that of scores of other detainees were resolved on Nov. 17 through the Supreme Court’s National Judgment Day Program.—PHOTOS BY JHESSET ENANO

Behind Ernani Garcia’s smile that Friday morning were some apprehensions over what lies ahead the moment he steps out of the Quezon City Jail.

After nearly two years in detention, the 39-year-old Garcia packed his stuff as one of the more than 20 inmates who will be home for Christmas.

Garcia was in the first batch of detainees released on National Judgment Day, which this year fell on Nov. 17, the annual culmination of a Supreme Court initiative to decongest overcrowded jails and backlogged courts.

The 3-year-old program sets simultaneous hearings on a single day to finally resolve long-delayed cases.

For the administrators of the Quezon City Jail, one of Metro Manila’s most crowded detention facilities, Judgment Day allowed them to heave a sigh of relief.

More expected to be freed

According to the jail warden, Supt. Ermilito Moral, at least 27 inmates were allowed to walk free on Judgment Day itself after being found not guilty by the local courts.

By yearend, between 100 to 200 detainees from the city jail in Kamuning are expected to be released, Moral added in an interview.

“This is significant to us because we will somehow be decongested even for a few months,” said the official, who oversees the 3,000-square-meter facility that was built for only 800 detainees but lately packed as many as 3,400 due to a surge in drug-related arrests.

Around 100 detainees had been added to the jail population each month under the Duterte administration, Moral said.

Female detainees covered

Of the 555 detainees from Quezon City who underwent the fast-tracked hearings during Judgment Day, around 200 were from two other facilities (the city jail annex and the Metro Manila District Jail, both in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City).

At least 60 inmates from the Female Dormitory at Camp Karingal, headquarters of the Quezon City Police District, were also covered by the program.

For the inmates who were acquitted or whose cases were dismissed, their  newfound freedom would be the best Christmas present for their families, Moral said.

One of them was Garcia, who was arrested for alleged possession of 0.03 grams of “shabu” (crystal meth) in February 2015.

He maintained his innocence throughout the trial, saying he was only lumped together with a group of real drug users arrested by barangay watchmen.

Still, his case dragged on for two years and required up to six hearings, sometimes with five-month gaps between court sessions.

Nonappearances

On Friday, Judge Edgardo Bellosillo of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 95 ordered Garcia’s immediate release, citing the prosecution’s failure to prove his guilt.

The watchmen who had arrested Garcia without a warrant did not show up in court when called to testify.

Such nonappearances of complainants usually result in trial postponements, prolonging the process and somehow already punishing suspects who are yet to be convicted, Moral noted.

After his long wait, Garcia, who worked as a cook before his arrest, said he was “both excited to walk out of jail but also nervous if I can get back to my job and if I can easily apply for government clearances.”

Another acquittal

Jerson Buyain, another inmate acquitted on Judgment Day, also had mixed emotions.

The 37-year-old jeepney driver was arrested by the Quezon City police who supposedly found two shotgun rounds in his Fairview home when they searched it in July 2016.

Like Garcia, Buyain insisted he was wrongly accused. After six hearings, Judge Editha Mina-Aguba of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 100 ruled for his acquittal, having found discrepancies in the police statements regarding the  house search and the suspect’s warrantless arrest.

“When they read the court’s decision to me, I cried,” he said. “I was not guilty, but I spent a year and a half behind bars and they took me away from my family and livelihood.”