New guidelines on time allowances seen to help decongest jails

MANILA, Philippines — The departments of Justice and Interior and Local Government on Friday launched a manual on time allowances of service of sentence that is seen to help decongest jails and prisons.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and Interior Undersecretary Eduardo Año led the launch of the new manual that allows the director general of the Bureau of Corrections, chief of the Bureau of Jail and Management Penology, and jail wardens "to grant time allowances for good conduct, studying, teaching or mentoring and/or loyalty" to those in jail.

The BuCor is under the DOJ, while the BJMP is attached to the DILG.

Justice Undersecretary Reynante Orceo said that prior to the manual, "the BuCor, BJMP, and local jails have different approaches on how to give time allowances to persons deprived of liberty."

"We want to have a unification, uniform [process] and we want to help and went on to train the local jail [wardens] because , although the law mandated the local [jail wardens] to also give time allowances, they are still not implementing it for some reason they don’t have the knowledge," Orceo added.

Orceo also serves as the chairman of the joint DOJ-DILG Committee.

Orceo said that this new manual will also help in decongesting jails.  He added: "It's actually for the benefit of persons deprived of liberty that eventually have been convicted and they will lessen their designated sentence."

The latest Commission on Audit report put jail congestion at the staggering rate of 511 percent.

“As of December 31, 2016, the BJMP has a total jail population of 126,946, which exceeded the total ideal capacity of 20,746, having a variance of 106,200 or a total average of 511 percent of congestion/overcrowding or clogging,” the COA report released in June said.

According to Orceo, the committee will also train local jail wardens to compute and give time allowances to "persons deprived of liberty."

The government is also looking into "increasing literacy and skills standards and strengthening moral values of [Person Deprived of Liberty] through work and other human development programs while incarcerated will better facilitate their integration into the mainstream society as reformed and productive citizens."

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