Interior Secretary Eduardo Año maintained late Monday that persons deprived of liberty (PDL) are safer from COVID-19 as they are already under home quarantine after visits to detention facilities were suspended.
In a statement Año assured that PDLs were safer inside the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facilities, saying, “With the suspension of visitation rights, the PDLs have no way of contacting the virus and are therefore much safer than all of us who are out in the open and exposed to the movement of people and the virus.”
The Department of the Interior and Local Government secretary issued the statement in response to calls by some sectors for the immediate release of first-time and low-risk offenders from jail so they would not be vulnerable to COVID-19 infection while detained.
“They will be more vulnerable and exposed to the virus if they are released at this time,” Año said, adding, “All detention cells are COVID-free. That is the safest place right now.”
—Jeanette I. Andrade