SC orders transfer of convicts to BuCor facilities suspended
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court ordered Philippine courts to temporarily suspend the transfer of convicts to Bureau of Corrections facilities, from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
In a one-page order on Wednesday, Court Administrator Midas Marquez ordered the suspension of courts' issuance of commitment orders from BJMP jail units to the BuCor from July 29 to August 31.
“All convicted PDLs (Persons Deprived of Liberty) who should have otherwise been committed to the BuCor shall in the meantime remain and be committed in the BJMP jail units,” Marquez added.
BJMP operates jails and holds jurisdiction over people awaiting or undergoing investigation or trial, those waiting to be transferred to Bureau of Corrections-run penitentiaries, and over "violent mentally ill person who endangers themselves."
The BuCor meanwhile manages prisons and penal facilities that house persons convicted by courts to serve their sentences.
This latest order from the SC was an action on the letter of BuCor Director General Gerald Bantag who requested the temporary suspension of commitment order issuances “to prevent the further contamination of COVID-19 among [Persons Deprived of Liberty].”
Bantag also said his request was to “minimize the movement of PDL from BJMP to Bureau of Corrections.”
This comes amid a National Bureau of Investigation-led probe into circumstances surrounding the deaths of nine high-profile inmates at the New Bilibid Prison.
The circular also comes a week after Marquez directed court trial judges to order the detention of newly-arrested PLDs to local Philippine National Police units, as a response to Interior Secretary Eduardo Año’s request.
The SC order came just as the police said that while their detention cells can still accommodate PDLs, this is “with barely enough capacity.”
President Rodrigo Duterte last week said there won’t be any letup in arresting people, even those who are not wearing masks in public—to which Año readily assured of the police’s commitment to carry out the order.
Latest data available from BJMP showed that as of June 11, 745 of their detainees contracted the deadly coronavirus.
The corrections bureau meanwhile said that as of July 15, 343 inmates from the New Bilibid Prison and the Correctional Institution for Women contracted the coronavirus. Of these, 21 inmates, including nine high-profile convicts, died.
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