Unified database pushed to ease administration of justice

PARTNERSHIP Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos (left) in a program on Tuesday in Cagayan de Oro City explains the benefits of reliable data in the country’s penal system as Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla (center) and Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo listen. —Ryan D. Rosauro

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines — Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo recalled that years back when he had to secure a clearance from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which was required in applying for a seat in the Sandiganbayan, he had to execute a legal undertaking that he was not the person indicated in the agency’s database to have a pending case in court.

The chief magistrate lamented that this was unnecessarily repeated when he again sought NBI clearance as he applied for a seat in the Supreme Court, as if he had not submitted a previous certification.

On Tuesday, Gesmundo expressed confidence that similar experiences would be a thing of the past with the institutionalization of the National Justice Information System (NJIS) for which the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) forged a memorandum of agreement (MOA).

READ: DOJ, SC, DILG sign MOA to launch National Justice Info System

Gesmundo cited the NJIS, which was conceived in 2012, to have “proven useful in enabling a more efficient and coordinated approach to the administration of justice” although it also faced issues like the lack of a central governing body, human resources, legal mandate and “accountability mechanism to ensure that the agencies involved fulfill their roles faithfully.”

The system hopes to consolidate into a central database what is currently fragmented information available in the courts, the penal institutions, prosecutorial offices and law enforcement agencies.

In many of these institutions, data filing and management are done manually, making information exchange prone to delays and possibly corruption, according to lawyer Mark Jhayzon Leaño, the official overseeing the DOJ-NJIS.

Through the NJIS, there will be streamlined coordination and real-time data sharing. An example is a court order uploaded into the system that could immediately alert the Bureau of Immigration to bar a person from traveling abroad.

Under the MOA, the DOJ will lead the capacity upgrade of involved agencies and institutions, and operate and maintain the platform for data exchange.

Gesmundo described it as “the connective tissue between the many different agencies” involved in the NJIS.

No reliable info

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla recalled that the need for NJIS became acute when, in 2022, they began to evaluate who among inmates in correctional facilities, which are normally cramped, are eligible for release, and they are faced with absence of reliable information that can be immediately used.

Remulla noted that they discovered, for one, how prison officers were allegedly “charging a certain amount so that the record of a particular inmate could be transmitted to the Board of Pardons and Parole.” He also said that many of those imprisoned in the New Bilibid Prison used different identities.

The breakthrough came with the work done by Arturo Malvar, now DOJ assistant secretary, who has experience in digital sciences in the context of the defense industry abroad.

Through the data organized so far by the NJIS, Remulla said they had set free over 18,000 inmates. “We punish people correctly, not put them a day longer in jail than they are supposed to,” he stressed.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos said the available data also benefited some 77,467 detainees in facilities under the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology through the good conduct time allowance and 18,865 for other jail time deductions. Abalos noted that many inmates had overstayed in jails, contributing to congestion.