Free aging cons, decongest jails

Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto called on President Duterte on Thursday to decongest the country’s rotting and cramped jails, saying old and ailing convicts should be freed to give way to scores of new ones expected to be netted in the government’s stepped up war against criminality.

Describing the congestion as “worse than being tightly packed like sausages,” Recto called on the President to grant parole to “old, infirm or gravely or terminally ill prisoners” especially to those serving time for crimes that are not heinous.

“[He] must set in motion a process that will grant liberty to prisoners sick of cancer, the aged, the infirm, those who can be freed on humanitarian grounds,” Recto said, pointing out that Mr. Duterte must commit to this in the same way he has expressed readiness to free political prisoners to pave the way for peace talks with communists.

He encouraged Mr. Duterte to outdo his predecessor in exercising his pardon power as empowered by the Constitution, noting that Mr. Aquino had granted clemency only 67 times throughout his six-year term.  Tarra Quismundo