SC urges gov’t to improve jail facilities

The Supreme Court (SC) has called on the government to improve jail facilities to provide clean, adequately equipped, and sanitary facilities for persons arrested and detained.

- By REY G. PANALIGAN

If the government continuously fails to improve jails or detention facilities in compliance with the standards set by law, the SC said that “when properly invoked,” it will not hesitate to act in upholding the existing rights of the detainees and inmates.

The SC's declaration was contained in a decision that upheld the Office of the Ombudsman's (OMB) dismissal of the complaint filed by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in 2017 against police officers in Tondo, Manila.

The decision was written by Associate Justice Antonio T. Kho Jr.

In its complaint, the CHR told the OMB that the police officers were operating a so-called “secret detention cell” inside the Raxabago Police Station 1 in Tondo.

The CHR said it discovered three men and nine women cramped in a small, dirty room hidden behind a wooden shelf. Video footage of the room was submitted, and the CHR claimed it was a “secret cell.”

The police officers said the station was overcrowded at the time, holding 96 detainees despite being built for only 50. Thus, they said, a small room had to be used as a temporary holding area while detainees awaited investigation.

They denied it was a “secret cell” since it was visible and had its own entrances.