FOCUS March 2005 Volume 39
Human Rights Behind Bars:The Manila City Jail Experience
Ma. Rita Arce Alfaro
- Ma. Rita Arce Alfaro is a law graduate who headed the Manila City JailProject of the Far Eastern University Legal Aid Bureau (Philippines). She wasan intern of HURIGHTS OSAKA.
Perhaps the most inhuman act that society commits against prisoners is the blatantdisregard for their rights. The thought that prisoners have human rights escapesmost people. While part of a prisoner's punishment is deprivation of certaincivil rights, every prisoner has rights mandated and protected by the UnitedNations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,[1] theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention AgainstTorture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. However,in the face of all these international instruments, society persists in violatingthe human rights of prisoners by omission and apathy - neglecting to do whatought to be done and turning a blind eye on what needs to be addressed. The PhilippineJail System, particularly the Manila City Jail, exemplifies this situation.
Within prison walls
The Manila City Jail currently accommodates close to 5,000 prisoners who areclassified by law as detention prisoners, city prisoners and youth offenders.Within its walls are men, women, minors, people with mental illness, and thosewith health problems. Prisoners, both undergoing trial and convicted, are mixedtogether in this prison.
Surrounded by a shopping mall and stores, railway stations, major streets anda university, the Manila City Jail seems incongruous to the idea of sequesteringcriminals away from society for the purpose of rehabilitation and reformation.Inmates are hardly removed from society when they are placed in the midst ofthe hustle and bustle of city life.
While the Philippine government continues to initiate various projects and schemeson appropriate jail relocation such goal remains buried under the bureaucracyand suffers from lack of funding. Prison population increases as new laws providefor new offenses. The new Dangerous Drugs Act, which took effect in 2002 andprovided for stricter penalties and lowered the threshold of offense necessaryfor arrest, caused the recent upsurge of prison population.
The jail structure
The Manila City Jail has four main compounds housing four groups divided alongethnic and gender lines. While men and women are housed in separate compounds,the juvenile delinquents are mixed with the adult prisoners, prisoners with mentalillness are mixed with those who are mentally healthy, and the physically illwith the able-bodied. This is in direct contravention of the United Nations Standardfor Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (UN Minimum Rules), which provides:
8. The different categories of prisoners shall be kept in separateinstitutions or parts of institutions taking account of their sex, age, criminalrecord, the legal reason for their detention and the necessities of their treatment.Thus,
(a) Men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions;in an institution which receives both men and women the whole of the premisesallocated to women shall be entirely separate;
(d) Young prisoners shall be kept separate from adults.
82. (1) Persons who are found to be insane shall not be detained in prisons andarrangements shall be made to remove them to mental institutions as soon as possible.
(2) Prisoners who suffer from other mental diseases or abnormalities shall beobserved and treated in specialized institutions under medical management.
Each compound has one main hall and one main dormitory. It is segregated fromthe other compounds by walls and fences. A dormitory, housing all the prisonersof the compound, has sparse facilities. Affluent inmates can pay for a space(called "condominium") that separates them from other inmates by wooden walls,and for 90 US dollars a spartan cot. The less affluent may avail of the "apartment," aspace shared by 2-4 people. Destitute inmates usually sleep on the sahig or floorwith hardly any bedding. Rice or flour sacks, even newspapers, are utilized asbedding while pillows and blankets are rare. Again this situation violates theUN Minimum Rules which state clearly that:
9. (1) Where sleeping accommodation is in individual cells or rooms,each prisoner shall occupy by night a cell or room by himself. If for specialreasons, such as temporary overcrowding, it becomes necessary for the centralprison administration to make an exception to this rule, it is not desirableto have two prisoners in a cell or room.
(2) Where dormitories are used, they shall be occupied by prisoners carefullyselected as being suitable to associate with one another in those conditions.There shall be regular supervision by night, in keeping with the nature of theinstitution.
10. All accommodation provided for the use of prisoners and in particular allsleeping accommodation shall meet all requirements of health, due regard beingpaid to climatic conditions and particularly to cubic content of air, minimumfloor space, lighting, heating and ventilation.
The typical dormitory is cramped, poorly lit and with hardly any ventilation.It stinks even if cleaned and scrubbed with the harshest of disinfectants. Thedormitory is blistering hot at most times of the year. Inmates fall easy preyto outbreaks of skin diseases such as boils, infections, and various allergies.Tuberculosis proliferates inside the prison walls.
The Manila City Jail was originally built to accommodate 1,000 inmates, and yetit currently houses approximately 5,000 inmates. Inmates take "shifts" in sleepingon the bare floors. During daytime, inmates could not slump or sit on the floorfor lack of space. They are forced to stand all day long.
Food and sanitation
The daily budget allocated per inmate is merely 35 pesos (less than 1 US dollar).This amount covers three meals a day in addition to the budget for drinking water.The UN Minimum Rules state that:
20. (1) Every prisoner shall be provided by the administration atthe usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength,of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.
The harsh reality is that the meal allowance cannot possibly be stretched tosustain a prisoner. Moreover, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology admitsthat with the increasing number of prisoners and detainees, the budget allocationwould often be too thinly stretched in light of severe budgetary constraintsin the government coffers.
Prison food is usually comprised of rice, a basic staple, and viands (usuallycanned sardines). On lucky days when donations arrive, a variety of canned meatsmay be served along with vegetable stew. Variance in viands often depends ondonations from family visitors or charitable organizations. Most donations pourin only during Christmas holidays.
Due to limited food supply, the inmates are served rice mixed with sardines (orany other viand) from a cauldron. The inmates liken this to the way cows arefed in ranches, calling meal time as "ranch time" (oras ng rancho).The food has little nutritional value and prepared in unsanitary way. What isfed to the prisoner in the end would look like a feed, mush, or worse, slop.
With limited water supply due to non-functioning pipelines, personal hygieneand sanitation are highly compromised.
Human rights behind bars
A prison system facilitates punishment, retribution or retaliation, expiation,deterrence, and reformation, as well as the protection of society. But in manycases, these aims are not served. The prison system is constrained to punishmentand retribution per se; with little regard for the reformation and rehabilitationof the offender. With the indifference to the plight of the prisoners, societyyet creates more monsters out of them. The main thrust of present day prisonsystem has not evolved from the time of the guillotine. But if urgent needs areto be addressed, reform in the prison system is a must.
The Manila City Jail experience symbolizes the present-day problems of the prisonsystem.
What are placed behind bars are not just the physical bodies but the fundamentalhuman rights of prisoners as well. Prisoners, while viewed as sinners againstsociety, are human beings too, something neglected by many.
As Fyodor Dostoevsky opined, "A society should be judged not by how it treatsits outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals."[2] Letthis be our guide.
Endnotes
1. Approved by the Economic andSocial Council (resolutions 663 C (XXIV) of 31 July 1957 and 2076 (LXII) of 13May 1977.
2. Taken from his novel Memoirsof the House of the Dead (1860).
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