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Las Piñas City Rep. Mark Villar on Friday filed a measure seeking to decongest jails by opening Community Work Camps in lieu of imprisonment.
In House Bill 3903, he proposed which provides work within a community as alternative to detainees serving sentences ranging from one day to six months and those with six months or less remaining to serve.
Villar said the life of a prisoner doing time can be very frustrating, unproductive, unhealthy or even harmful.
“More than serving the sentence, what is more punishing to the inmates is extreme overcrowding, which may pose danger to life and health,” he said.
Citing a 2010 report of the Philippine Statistical Authority National Statistical Coordination Board, Villar said there were 59,289 inmates under the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
Villar said 56,479 or 95.3 percent were detained and 2,810 or 4.7 percent were sentenced. At least 1,147 were held by the Philippine National Police on a temporary basis, an increase of 5 percent from 2009.
He said the ideal jail density per inmate on the average of these 423 BJMP jails with a total cell area of 50,351 square meters, is 4.7 square meters.
Villar said the national jail congestion rate, which is the number of extra inmates over the jail capacity in December 2010, was 446.1 percent. The total number of prisoners in the Bureau of Corrections penal institutions was 35,937.
Under the measure, Community Work Camps are created so that these individuals can take an active role in helping nurture the environment.
The bill also provides for a preparatory rehabilitation phase for prisoners before they rejoin society.
Community service shall include tree planting, building artificial reefs, and participating in farm projects demonstration or other livelihood projects. Depending on their good behavior and performance, a part of the sentence can be reduced.
The bill mandates the Department of Justice) to issue the rules and regulations of implementation in coordination with the Supreme Court and the Departments of Interior and Local Government, Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources and National Defense.
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