New Camp Bagong Diwa jail has ‘solitary isolation cells’ – group

Note: This is a stock image of a cell and not of the newly constructed jail facility at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — Makabayan lawmakers and members of a support group for political prisoners said they have confirmed the existence of “solitary isolation cells” in a newly constructed jail facility at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City.

The members of the House of Representatives and Kapatid inspected the Metro Manila District Jail (MMDJ) on Wednesday, July 10, and discovered rows of alleged solitary isolation cells on the seventh floor of the building.

“BJMP (Bureau of Jail Management and Penology) chief General [Ruel] Rivera tried to assure us that these cells were not specifically built for the political prisoners nor will they be put there,” Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim said in a statement Thursday.

READ: Political prisoners assail reported transfer plan to isolation cells

“But we remain anxious given the rising International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) involvement in Philippine jails and its program against ‘violent extremism’ not unlike the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict’s objective of political persecution,” she added.

In March, political prisoners rejected the BJMP’s alleged plan to transfer them to the alleged solitary isolation cells or what they described as 2×3 “cubicles.”

Under Rule 43 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Mandela Rules, the following are prohibited:

• Indefinite solitary confinement
• Prolonged solitary confinement
• Placement of a prisoner in a dark or constantly lit cell
• Corporal punishment or the reduction of a prisoner’s diet or drinking water
• Collective punishment or sanctions amount to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

The Philippine Anti-Torture Act or Republic Act No. 9745 likewise bars “secret detention places, solitary, incommunicado or other similar forms of detention, where torture may be carried out with impunity.”

In the same Kapatid statement, ACT Teachers party list Rep. France Castro described the cells in the new jail facility as “[having] double iron-bar gates from floor to ceiling – an outside gate and an inner gate that partitioned an area in between.” Castro was part of the group that checked the MMDJ on Wednesday.

Earlier, BJMP spokesperson Jayrex Joseph Bustinera clarified that their new jail facilities are following a “human rights-based approach in jail management,” adding that “bartolina” or isolation of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in 24 hours per day is prohibited under their policy.

He also denied claims that the cells are 2×3 meters in size but revealed that “smaller cells” will accommodate PDLs “that require to be segregated from the general population,” such as those with contagious disease.

Bustinera likewise noted that instead of single occupancy, smaller cells are “double occupancy” for PDLs with “high custodial risk.”

“They could be referring to the new MMDJ facility where we will relocate jails in Bicutan as part of our decongestion program. This facility is more modern and spacious,” Bustinera told INQUIRER.net in a phone interview last March.

But Castro pointed out in the same statement that “the issue is not whether a small cell can accommodate more than one person but the inhumane practice of punishing inmates by isolating them for whatever reasons.”

During their visit, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers chairperson Atty. Edre Olalia shared that BJMP has committed the following:

• There will be no solitary confinement anywhere in the new facility – whether in the two or four-person cells or the 10-person cells, much less in a single-person cell, which does not exist, even as a form of punishment. The only exception is a PDL who is mentally ill or has a communicable disease or a danger to himself or others, in which case foam walls may be installed to prevent any harm to the PDL.
• The political prisoners will not be placed on the seventh floor, where all the solitary cells are located unless they choose otherwise, rather than in the 10-person cells on other floors.
• The lock receptacles in the inner gate dividing each small solitary cell on the seventh floor will be dismantled to allow free movement inside such a cell.

Kapatid also observed that contrary to the description of the MMDJ as shown in the BJMP video, there is no “interrogation room” in the new jail facility. According to the group, the room will be used only to question visitors caught smuggling alleged contraband and will not be used to interrogate any PDL.

BJMP chief Ruel Rivera and BJMP National Capital Region Director Clint Russel Tangeres led the site visit at Camp Bagong Diwa on July 10 which was prompted by concerns raised against the MMDJ.