BY GEROME DALIPE IV
ILOILO City – Congested jails managed by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) continue to be a significant concern in Western Visayas.
This despite the construction and rehabilitation of 39 jail facilities in the region supposedly to address overcrowding, according to the Regional Development Council (RDC).
The jail population density and custodial ratio got even worse: 2.02 inmates per 4.7 square meters in 2020 and 2021 compared with 2.0 in 2019.
“Escorting ratio and congestion rate improved in the past years, but the intervention was insufficient, that the region failed to reach the plan targets for jail population density and custodial ratio,” read the council’s Regional Development Plan for 2023 – 2028.
Bacolod City is the only “Justice Zone” in Western Visayas and the fifth of its kind in the country. Hence, several inter-agency coordination efforts on the administration of justice were coordinated in the area.
Bacolod City is fully compliant with the rating system established by the Justice Coordinating Council.
Likewise, the council noted the increase in the number of applications for parole and probation clients and the number of investigation cases referred by the courts and Board of Pardons and Parole.
However, some of these cases failed to meet the requirements due to revisions in the Rules of Court on plea bargaining for drug-related cases.
To address such concerns, the council stressed that enhancing the administration of justice requires the improvement of the disposition of cases and access to affordable legal services.
This simply means the speedy resolution of cases of persons deprived of liberty (PDL) and other vulnerable groups inside the jail facilities.
Strategies to achieve and enhance the administration of justice also include improvement of the quality of life and rehabilitation of persons deprived of liberty in the jail facilities and to ensure productive reintegration of offenders in society.
“The improvement in the quality and efficiency on the disposition of cases will rely on the improved sector efficiency and accountability, and advancement in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), as well as in the filtering of employed mechanisms at all levels of conflict management,” the council said.
The Office of the Regional State Prosecutor-6 intends to improve its current prosecutor-to-court ratio by increasing its workforce complement and reducing the caseloads for each prosecutor.
“This will facilitate the speedy trial of the accused and improvements in the disposition rates and clearance rates of all courts in the judicial region,” the council added.
The insufficient number of prosecutors remains one of the challenges in the adequate disposal of cases in Region 6. There are roughly 140 prosecutors in the region catering to about 19, 128 caseloads as of 2021.
The prosecution recorded a disposition rate of 77.36 percent, which is the lowest in the country for 2021, the council noted.
That’s because out of 23 prosecution offices in Western Visayas, about 10 have average caseloads of at least 500 cases per prosecutor.
For instance, one prosecution office recorded a heavy caseload of at least 1, 000 cases per prosecutor.
The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Region 6 vowed to ensure the fictionalization of the peacemakers in each barangay in the region and improve the out-of-court settlement of disputes.
“This will reduce case dockets, improve the efficiency of courts, and allow parties to compromise,” the council stressed.
The Public Attorney’s Office will continue its legal representation of indigents before the courts and quasi-judicial bodies.
“By increasing the agency workforce, the average number of cases handled by the public attorneys will be reduced and the public attorney-to-court ratio will be improved,” the council said.
The Supreme Court also aims to expand the scope of the Justice on Wheels Program to address specialized issues like tenurial disputes in agrarian reform, and climate and environmental cases.
“Bringing the courts closer to litigants will ensure speedy resolution of disputes in tenurial arrangements and environmental actions,” the council noted./PN
