Special treatment
The detention cells are so crowded inmates who can no longer be accommodated on tiered bunks are forced to sleep side by side on folded cartons on the floor. Inmates, who are required to wear yellow shirts and brown pants, subsist on a daily meal allowance of P50, although food given by visitors is allowed.
That’s the current state of the jail facility for women located inside the compound of Camp Karingal, headquarters of the Quezon City Police District. The Female Dormitory, run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, was built for 56 inmates but currently holds 504.
Jessica “Gigi” Reyes, former chief of staff of Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, may soon become inmate No. 505, on orders of the Sandiganbayan. Authorities are facing criticism for allowing Reyes, who is neither an elected official nor a state witness in the pork barrel scam, to enjoy VIP treatment and have her own cell, even if only over the weekend, in the basement of the anti-graft court.
Although critics are less harsh on Enrile because of his age, eyebrows were also raised when he was allowed to leave detention for an eye checkup in a private hospital. Critics scoffed that doctors are likely to find something wrong with every part of the body of any 90-year-old. Enrile, invoking his privacy and the presumption of innocence, also got his wish to keep his mug shot from the public.
The treatment of senators in detention should set a precedent in making the humane treatment of inmates the norm rather than a privilege reserved only for those accused of using power for large-scale corruption.
Local jails hold mainly inmates who have not yet been convicted and are therefore presumed innocent. They also suffer from stress, migraine and high blood pressure at the prospect of incarceration, but they don’t get escorted at taxpayer’s expense to a hospital for their ailments. Many of them are not hardened criminals, as Reyes reportedly fears.
Even those who have been convicted and are serving sentences in the national prisons deserve a humane environment under modern penology and international standards on human rights. The plight of the accused senators – with more lawmakers expected to join them in the near future – should lead to the modernization of the country’s detention facilities.