BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
ILOILO City – Seventy inmates “overstaying” in various jails here and Iloilo province are set to be released.
Thanks to the Enhanced Justice on Wheels (EJOW) of the Supreme Court. Their cases were reviewed.
“Most of them already served the maximum imposable penalty for crimes they were charged with despite the fact that they were not yet convicted,” said Supreme Court administrator Jose Midas Marquez.
He led the EJOW here yesterday.
In other cases, the complainants were no longer interested to pursue the charges, thus the respondents were granted provisionary release, said Marquez.
The last time the Supreme Court brought the EJOW to Iloilo was in 2010.
The EJOW, also known as the mobile court, is the Supreme Court’s answer to the problem on the inaccessibility to justice by the poor and the disadvantaged. It started in 2004.
Supreme Court deputy administrator Raul Villanueva thanked the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Iloilo Chapter headed by Atty. Aila Rae Endonila for providing legal aid to the inmates under the EJOW program.
Also yesterday, the Supreme Court conducted a medical and dental mission. Between 100 to 780 inmates of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology were served.
The Iloilo City Health Office provided the medicines.
Associate Justice Mariano Del Castillo also joined the EJOW here yesterday./PN
