20% of NBP inmates die every year — Bilibid hospital chief

MANILA, Philippines — Twenty percent or about 5,200 inmates of the New Bilibid Prison’s (NBP) maximum security compound die every year due to various health reasons, the director of the NBP hospital revealed Thursday.

He cited overcrowding as one of the major causes of deaths within the compound, adding that Bureau of Corrections’ management could not “contain” certain diseases such as pulmonary tuberculosis from spreading among inmates.

“Hindi ma-contain ‘yung pulmonary tuberculosis (The pulmonary tuberculosis could not be contained),” Tamayo said during a Senate probe on the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law.

Tamayo later clarified that the number includes deaths by violence such as stabbing.

Meanwhile, former NBP inmate Godfrey Gamboa said that “a lot” of NBP inmates die due to the food served inside the prison walls.

“Marami po [ang namamatay]. Puro panis ang pagkain eh. Nanghihina sila (A lot of them die because most of the food are already spoiled. They get weak),” Gamboa said.

Tamayo said food poisoning incidents are isolated cases and inmates are usually treated for dehydration. He said no one has yet died out of malnourishment.

“Ang nangyari lang po, napakain na may sira ang pagkain. Once lang po ‘yun. Sabi nila botcha (What happened was inmates were fed spoiled food. It only happened once, the meat was double dead),” he said.

He said the caterer was then summoned and suspended. /je