Prison Conditions In Philippines Called ‘Unfit For Human Beings9

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 7

Prison Conditions In Philippines Called ‘Unfit For Human Beings 9

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright? MANILA. More than 20,000 Filipinos are serving prison terms under conditions not fit for human beings, according to an official survey. Senator Salvador Laurel, who headed the survey, said that the food served to prisoners often “is not fit for pigs to eat.” One witness told the Senate Committee on Justice that drug addiction in prisons could not be curbed because some prison guards were themselves selling drugs. Senator Laurel has blamed

the conditions of Philippine prisons not only on budgetary deficiencies and neglect by the authorities, but also op what he calls archaic concepts of justice written into the law. A Manila newspaper which conducted its own survey said that many prison riots could be traced to sexual deprivation. It said that in city gaols, hundreds of detainees were herded together regardless of hygiene or bven of sex. Senator Laurel said in his report that “most of our prisons are congested and unkempt. Hardened criminals are thrown into common cells with minor criminals and youthful offenders. Most prisoners have to while away their time in idleness. The plight of Filipino prisoners, Senator Laurel said,

was largely caused by antiquated penal laws, "punitive and retributive" rather than reformative.

Among those who gave evidence to the committee was an Australian-born missionary interested in prison reform, Sister Elizabeth Moriarty. She is dean of the English department of Sacred Heart College in South Korea, and has peen in Manila for special group studies since last September.

Sister Moriarty told the committee that Philippine prison conditions were “terrible.” Manila's Youth Centre, instead of serving as a place for the rehabilitation of young prisoners, was "really a children’s prison.” The English-language newspaper, the “Philippines Herald,” found that prison

conditions ranged from “fairly habitable to inhumanely cruel." It said that the National Penitentiary, at Muntinlupa, about 25 miles south of Manila, has 8189 inmates—in quarters designed for 3000 people. The “Herald” said that prisoners of penal colonies in the southern islands were somewhat better off, because they could do productive work such as tilling rice fields, manning tractors, and raising pigs in surroundings without high prison walls. In the National Penitentiary, the problem has been tackled by Mr Alejo Santos, known in prison circles as the most refonn-minded director the prison has ever had. [ He has organised prisoners i into drill companies which try I

to outdo one another in precision marching drills. He has given inmates a chance to cultivate idle hand: around the compound, to the point where the prison is now self-sufficient in rice and sugar. Senator Laurel has said he is preparing legislation that will make persons receiving suspended sentences be placed under a supervised reformatory programme, allow conjugal visits to “curt sexual perversion and reduce tensions and riots,” and to make it unlawful to discriminate against former convicts in matters of employment.

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