New Bilibid Prison (nbp)

As reported by The Philippine Star, “The overcrowded NBP, built for 8,700 inmates but now teeming with 23,000 prisoners mostly serving life sentences in the maximum security compound, has created a four-wall community for high profile convicts like drug lords who have practically ruled the prison facility.”  I find it difficult to understand how the NBP management has   tolerated this all these years. It is equally valid to ask the question: Why is the Bureau of Corrections director Franklin Jesus Bucayu not relieved? 

Once the headlines disappear, I suspect the old habits of the drug lords will return. With the help of former Ambassador (Atty.) Manuel Teehankee Jr., I learned more about the country’s prison system. The Bureau of Corrections have jurisdiction over insular or national prisoners who are sentenced to a prison term of three years and one day to death. NBP is one of those facilities, as well as 6 others such as the Correctional Institute for women, Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa City and Davao Prison and Penal Farm in Davao province. The provincial governments have jurisdiction over prisoners who are sentenced to a prison term of six months and one day to three years. Some provincial jails have opted to turn over their jurisdiction to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) pursuant to the 1991 Local Government Code.  BJMP and PNP under DILG have jurisdiction over city prisoners who are sentenced to a prison term of one day to three years. BJMP has a total of 68,702 detained prisoners and 3333 sentenced prisoners while the PNP has 899 prisoners. Municipal Prisoners who are sentenced to a term of one day to six months are under the BJMP and PNP. As of September 2012, 414 jails are under the operational jurisdiction of the BJMP and 573 are with the PNP or a total of 987 jails.

I have described this maze of prisons (attributable to patchwork legislation) to demonstrate the complexity of our penal system.  It is an enormous management task particularly because of the huge numbers and poorly trained personnel. Contemporary penology concerns itself mainly with criminal rehabilitation and prison management. I fear our current prison management has yet to learn how to do this. Sometime in the 1980s, privatized jails for profit were instituted by private investors in the United States. Today, I understand that accounts for 10 percent of the jails housing some 200,000 prisoners. There are also a few such prisons in Australia since 1990. The Catalan government in Spain have two privatized prisons and I understand 11 prisons in other Spanish regions have been awarded or in the process of awarding. 

These “for profit jails” have been the center of controversy, among human rights activists and others. But our national government and provincial governments should explore the possibility and perhaps find solutions to remove such obstacles. It is worth a try. We cannot maintain our prisons as it is today. Clearly, our country like all governments around the world are plagued with the problem of maintaining prisons vis-à-vis resource and budget constraints.

I would also suggest that the prison authorities explore the possibility of making productive use of prison labor for which they can even be paid. In the prewar days, Bilibid prisoners carved furniture. My parents had a beautiful double bed from Bilibid which is still being used by my family. The challenge of being resilient in the face of natural disasters is one area where prisoners can be used productively, for example in agriculture or even in the construction of evacuation centers. It would be far more meaningful than learning to dance like Michael Jackson. 

Controversy over Gates Foundation approach

In a Bloomberg column written by Simon Bennett, Francois Rihouay and Ougna Camara, “aid groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have spent tens of billions of dollars ($31.6 billion) battling deadly infectious diseases. Some public health experts want them to stop.” Many officials say spending billions of dollars to fight ailments such as aids, malaria and polio rather than supporting basic health services has left nations unprepared for epidemics like Ebola. One example cited was foreign assistance to Liberia which increased 20-fold in the decade after 2002 to $110 million in 2012. That year, funds were spent for combating malaria, HIV and TB versus two percent in 2002. Regrettably, Liberia had only eight hospitals beds for every 10,000 in 2012 versus 29 in the US and UK. A Harvard study published this year indicated that in one Liberian county, just half of the population had access to general health services and only a third had a health clinic within a hour’s walk. David Evans of WHO health systems department confirms that foreign money has gone towards laboratories and clinics that diagnose and treat a single disease, rather than providing basic health services. “You get treatment if you’re a woman with malaria and a woman with HIV, but if you’ve got cervical cancer or cardiovascular disease, you’re not covered.” Chris Elias, president of the Gates Foundation’s global development program rebutted: “What do you need to manage HIV treatment? Continuity of care. That’s what you need for diabetes as well. HIV can be the scaffolding upon which you build a broader health system.” 

This Bloomberg article highlights the controversy between Vertical (disease specific) and Horizontal funding. In the case of vertical funding, results are more easily measured and politically attractive. The slow progress in Millennium Development goals such as maternal mortality and infant mortality, which rely on a strong overall health system, has been partially blamed on this vertical focus.

Vertical initiatives have provided motivation and momentum to increase funding and improve health systems more generally, but they must integrate better and contribute more to the overall strengthening of health systems – both through funding and through building skills and capacity.

Local foundations should continue to monitor these developments in the years to come.