The drama unfolding inside our jails is insanely more riveting than anything else on TV. Rage and hair-tearing? Check. Mistresses and rumors of infidelity? Check. Fainting and rushing to the hospital? Check. Haughty rich matrona and poor innocent girl? Check. Throw in “having a baby”, and it’s a winning combination to get tongues wagging and passions aflaring.
Gigi Reyes and Andrea Rosal have a fundamental thing in common: while accused of crimes, both are innocent until proven guilty. Holding them in jail is meant to ensure that they show up at their respective hearings, not to punish them for acts they have yet been proven to have committed. That is the clear material distinction between detainees and prisoners, the latter having been finally sentenced to serve time in prison for rehabilitation.
So let’s think about why our detainees seem to be worlds apart. If before we only thought about two types of people in detention centers – those who deserve to be and those not to be – today we have to deal with the high-profile, the public official, the political prisoner. It’s a stratification entrenched so deeply, it blurs away the premise that the law was meant to be applied equally without fear or favor.
Recently, it was proposed in Congress that we establish a separate detention center to house all “high-profile” accused in “a secure, clean, and adequately-equipped” facility. I engaged one of its proponents in a discussion, where I stood firm against the concept of “high-profile”. Admittedly, some cases garner more attention and publicity because of the personalities involved and the type of cases. But I argue that media mileage isn’t the real measure of alarm, it is the security risk. The cases aren’t classified high-risk because they are high-profile, it’s the other way around. They become high-profile because they are considered high-risk – the rich and the famous can skittle their way through the justice system; the public official can play out his cards and max out his influence; and, more literally, there are those who can call on their comrades, friends, or mercenaries for rescue.
House Bill 1360 claims to have good intentions, but it’s frightfully misleading and egregious. New jails are needed, true. But it isn’t a lawmaker’s job to specifically put up those buildings, or solve the problem of “special treatment” in jails. What it can do is set aside the funds for the executive to build larger jails with better conditions, and demand an explanation why the rules and regulations inside the jails aren’t being reasonably and impartially enforced. Because of separation of powers, Congress can’t even directly exact accountability from a warden, who is not an impeachable officer.
How desperate then, to have suggested alleged communist guerillas, being “high-profile” will benefit too. And as I do represent several, it’s supremely infuriating, if not insulting, to dangle a fake carrot. Andrea Rosal, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, among others, did not ask for special consideration or accommodations, instead valiantly making do with what they have and where they are. So there goes another false impression, perpetuated by Bong “there-are-rats-in-my-cell” Revilla, that high-profile means high-maintenance as well.
In the eyes of the law, all those who stand trial are all the same – men and women entitled to due process as the State tries to nail them down, beyond reasonable doubt, for illegal acts and omissions. The general rule is simple: They should stay in detention cells until judgment day. There’s the option of bail, but it’s only open for those accused of less serious offenses and where evidence of guilt is not strong.
The other exceptions to jail time have become so complex, so ingenious it’s tempting to come up with a guidebook of sorts. From Ping Lacson: stay low, stay smart. From Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: bring out all the props. From Erap Estrada: keep a spare house. From Janet Napoles: embrace your cancer as both a boon and a bane. From Gigi Reyes: amp up the theatrics. If anybody’s taking bets on what medical conditions will plague who next, I’m betting Enrile will also have kidney problems soon enough. Oh wait. At his age, Enrile is already entitled to cite all the maladies from the book and then some.
There’s no issue per se if a detainee needs medical attention and confinement, because that’s the one bit of dignity and humanity that one musn’t deny even the enemy. But when it’s invoked with a sleazy goal to evade staying, and even stepping, in regular jails, that makes a travesty of both the aims of the justice system and our collective intellects.
Gigi Reyes started her hysterics four floors down from her intended cell at the Taguig City Jail – Female Dormitory, after she was reportedly shown a photo of the cell she would have to share with 31 others, and told she would have some “amazonas” as roommates. With all empathy, I believe she ought to be given the proper treatment. (But why is it when I get anxious, my friends just grab me by the shoulders and shake me until I say something coherent? How come I hyperventilate and someone just uncermoniously hands me a brown paper bag?)
Ah, Gigi Reyes is in a class of her own. Asks this tweet: “On a scale of 1 to Gigi Reyes, how annoyingly 'arte' (pretentious) have you been lately?” Without batting an eyelash, she is urgently and promptly whisked away to a hospital. Granted, she may have all sorts of medical issues before being arrested but they suspiciously flared up at such a convenient time, it begs not pity but disbelief.
I wish I could say the same of pregnant Maria Miradel Torres, ex-future cellmate of Gigi Reyes. Madel, soft-spoken and young, was arrested at her relative’s house in Quezon, ostensibly for a murder she committed as an NPA. Four months along, she was bleeding and told she has a low-lying placenta. Since early May she has taken the doctor’s advice and stayed in bed all the time. When she was arrested in June, the military saw how delicate her condition was and kept her in the hospital at Camp Nakar.
Typecast an NPA, Madel was moved to Taguig City Jail where the other “amazonas” are detained. The transfer was so sudden, the plans were all awry and the proper commitment forms still not accomplished when we came to visit her in the morning. For a moment I was tempted to insist we carry her out when I realized Taguig City Jail did not have the legitimate authority to keep her in.
Everybody – a private doctor who came to check her, the warden, and the inmates – were in perfect agreement that she needed to be immediately seen by a doctor in a hospital. But my god, I nearly bled myself too trying to haggle arrangements with the warden. The warden said the jail doctor needed to verify recommendations; I asked for a different one because he didn’t take good care of Andrea Rosal when she was pregnant. The warden insisted; I yielded. Nevertheless, the jail doctor also proposed Madel be brought to a hospital for an ultrasound.
Then the paralegal who oversees Madel’s case reported that the hospital couldn’t accommodate her at the time she was brought, hence she was sent back to the jail. The warden said they have to wait for another schedule, depending on the availability of the jail ambulance. I railed on the phone, alternately offering a vehicle to use (due to security reasons, they cannot use a private car) and blaming her for what could happen to the baby. Over the weekend, Madel started throwing up, which the warden brushes off as normal. My niece is also pregnant and reacts the same way to ferrosulfate pills, she says. I roll my eyes and sharply retort, Is your niece also in jail? She threw back that anyway, there’s no court order to bring Madel to the hospital yet.
The female dorm of Taguig City Jail is no place for a pregnant mother, not least for one in such delicate condition as Madel. As in the sad plight of Andrea Rosal, the concept of pre-natal care there is a few pills now and then and monotonous queries. It’s a place where a second pillow is a luxury, and extra vegetables can be considered special treatment. The inmates are made to take care of the pregnant in the best way they know how, nevermind if what they know comes from a village albularyo (faith healer).
How the BJMP chose to accommodate and tolerate Gigi Reyes’ antics makes my blood boil. Wretched double standards for the VIP and the NPA up front and personal is bemusing and frustrating at the same time. When I look back at all the excuses we heard – the jail doctor hasn’t permitted hospital transfer, the ambulance isn’t available, we don’t have a court order, the inmates anyway are taking care of Madel – I feel cheated that none of these we heard for Gigi Reyes.
It would have been best if we held the same standard of care, Gigi Reyes-level, for all detainees. Madel, continuously bleeding, was only brought to the Taguig District Hospital two days after she got the order from the Infanta, Quezon Regional Trial Court. And why not: Andrea, heavily pregnant and clutching her own hospital order, when told that she hadn’t been assigned a room yet, was convoyed back and forth the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and Taguig. Only after it was clarified that she should wait out the labor in the PGH, was she finally presented for admission by the BJMP.
The icing on the cake is now this: per BJMP policy, the government will pay for Gigi’s expenses in the hospital. How rich, especially since Gigi is precisely accused of pocketing public money and enriching herself at the public’s expense. There was no such offer for Andrea or Madel, who are still raising funds through friends and relatives for their hospital expenses.
Charges against Andrea were recently dismissed by the Pasig court, saying that the prosecutor who filed the information “committed a manifest error and grave abuse of discretion”. It’s a huge relief for Andrea, but one so immensely bittersweet. If she hadn’t been arrested while on her way to the doctor that fateful day in March, would baby Diona Andrea be alive? If she had been Gigi Reyes, would she have been brought to the hospital for tests and observation right away? With a quiet tremor in her voice, her question now is, Will Madel and her baby make it, despite the odds?
Krissy Conti is assistant secretary general for campaigns of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.
Gigi Reyes and Andrea Rosal have a fundamental thing in common: while accused of crimes, both are innocent until proven guilty. Holding them in jail is meant to ensure that they show up at their respective hearings, not to punish them for acts they have yet been proven to have committed. That is the clear material distinction between detainees and prisoners, the latter having been finally sentenced to serve time in prison for rehabilitation.
So let’s think about why our detainees seem to be worlds apart. If before we only thought about two types of people in detention centers – those who deserve to be and those not to be – today we have to deal with the high-profile, the public official, the political prisoner. It’s a stratification entrenched so deeply, it blurs away the premise that the law was meant to be applied equally without fear or favor.
Recently, it was proposed in Congress that we establish a separate detention center to house all “high-profile” accused in “a secure, clean, and adequately-equipped” facility. I engaged one of its proponents in a discussion, where I stood firm against the concept of “high-profile”. Admittedly, some cases garner more attention and publicity because of the personalities involved and the type of cases. But I argue that media mileage isn’t the real measure of alarm, it is the security risk. The cases aren’t classified high-risk because they are high-profile, it’s the other way around. They become high-profile because they are considered high-risk – the rich and the famous can skittle their way through the justice system; the public official can play out his cards and max out his influence; and, more literally, there are those who can call on their comrades, friends, or mercenaries for rescue.
House Bill 1360 claims to have good intentions, but it’s frightfully misleading and egregious. New jails are needed, true. But it isn’t a lawmaker’s job to specifically put up those buildings, or solve the problem of “special treatment” in jails. What it can do is set aside the funds for the executive to build larger jails with better conditions, and demand an explanation why the rules and regulations inside the jails aren’t being reasonably and impartially enforced. Because of separation of powers, Congress can’t even directly exact accountability from a warden, who is not an impeachable officer.
How desperate then, to have suggested alleged communist guerillas, being “high-profile” will benefit too. And as I do represent several, it’s supremely infuriating, if not insulting, to dangle a fake carrot. Andrea Rosal, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, among others, did not ask for special consideration or accommodations, instead valiantly making do with what they have and where they are. So there goes another false impression, perpetuated by Bong “there-are-rats-in-my-cell” Revilla, that high-profile means high-maintenance as well.
In the eyes of the law, all those who stand trial are all the same – men and women entitled to due process as the State tries to nail them down, beyond reasonable doubt, for illegal acts and omissions. The general rule is simple: They should stay in detention cells until judgment day. There’s the option of bail, but it’s only open for those accused of less serious offenses and where evidence of guilt is not strong.
The other exceptions to jail time have become so complex, so ingenious it’s tempting to come up with a guidebook of sorts. From Ping Lacson: stay low, stay smart. From Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: bring out all the props. From Erap Estrada: keep a spare house. From Janet Napoles: embrace your cancer as both a boon and a bane. From Gigi Reyes: amp up the theatrics. If anybody’s taking bets on what medical conditions will plague who next, I’m betting Enrile will also have kidney problems soon enough. Oh wait. At his age, Enrile is already entitled to cite all the maladies from the book and then some.
There’s no issue per se if a detainee needs medical attention and confinement, because that’s the one bit of dignity and humanity that one musn’t deny even the enemy. But when it’s invoked with a sleazy goal to evade staying, and even stepping, in regular jails, that makes a travesty of both the aims of the justice system and our collective intellects.
Gigi Reyes started her hysterics four floors down from her intended cell at the Taguig City Jail – Female Dormitory, after she was reportedly shown a photo of the cell she would have to share with 31 others, and told she would have some “amazonas” as roommates. With all empathy, I believe she ought to be given the proper treatment. (But why is it when I get anxious, my friends just grab me by the shoulders and shake me until I say something coherent? How come I hyperventilate and someone just uncermoniously hands me a brown paper bag?)
Ah, Gigi Reyes is in a class of her own. Asks this tweet: “On a scale of 1 to Gigi Reyes, how annoyingly 'arte' (pretentious) have you been lately?” Without batting an eyelash, she is urgently and promptly whisked away to a hospital. Granted, she may have all sorts of medical issues before being arrested but they suspiciously flared up at such a convenient time, it begs not pity but disbelief.
I wish I could say the same of pregnant Maria Miradel Torres, ex-future cellmate of Gigi Reyes. Madel, soft-spoken and young, was arrested at her relative’s house in Quezon, ostensibly for a murder she committed as an NPA. Four months along, she was bleeding and told she has a low-lying placenta. Since early May she has taken the doctor’s advice and stayed in bed all the time. When she was arrested in June, the military saw how delicate her condition was and kept her in the hospital at Camp Nakar.
Typecast an NPA, Madel was moved to Taguig City Jail where the other “amazonas” are detained. The transfer was so sudden, the plans were all awry and the proper commitment forms still not accomplished when we came to visit her in the morning. For a moment I was tempted to insist we carry her out when I realized Taguig City Jail did not have the legitimate authority to keep her in.
Everybody – a private doctor who came to check her, the warden, and the inmates – were in perfect agreement that she needed to be immediately seen by a doctor in a hospital. But my god, I nearly bled myself too trying to haggle arrangements with the warden. The warden said the jail doctor needed to verify recommendations; I asked for a different one because he didn’t take good care of Andrea Rosal when she was pregnant. The warden insisted; I yielded. Nevertheless, the jail doctor also proposed Madel be brought to a hospital for an ultrasound.
Then the paralegal who oversees Madel’s case reported that the hospital couldn’t accommodate her at the time she was brought, hence she was sent back to the jail. The warden said they have to wait for another schedule, depending on the availability of the jail ambulance. I railed on the phone, alternately offering a vehicle to use (due to security reasons, they cannot use a private car) and blaming her for what could happen to the baby. Over the weekend, Madel started throwing up, which the warden brushes off as normal. My niece is also pregnant and reacts the same way to ferrosulfate pills, she says. I roll my eyes and sharply retort, Is your niece also in jail? She threw back that anyway, there’s no court order to bring Madel to the hospital yet.
The female dorm of Taguig City Jail is no place for a pregnant mother, not least for one in such delicate condition as Madel. As in the sad plight of Andrea Rosal, the concept of pre-natal care there is a few pills now and then and monotonous queries. It’s a place where a second pillow is a luxury, and extra vegetables can be considered special treatment. The inmates are made to take care of the pregnant in the best way they know how, nevermind if what they know comes from a village albularyo (faith healer).
How the BJMP chose to accommodate and tolerate Gigi Reyes’ antics makes my blood boil. Wretched double standards for the VIP and the NPA up front and personal is bemusing and frustrating at the same time. When I look back at all the excuses we heard – the jail doctor hasn’t permitted hospital transfer, the ambulance isn’t available, we don’t have a court order, the inmates anyway are taking care of Madel – I feel cheated that none of these we heard for Gigi Reyes.
It would have been best if we held the same standard of care, Gigi Reyes-level, for all detainees. Madel, continuously bleeding, was only brought to the Taguig District Hospital two days after she got the order from the Infanta, Quezon Regional Trial Court. And why not: Andrea, heavily pregnant and clutching her own hospital order, when told that she hadn’t been assigned a room yet, was convoyed back and forth the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and Taguig. Only after it was clarified that she should wait out the labor in the PGH, was she finally presented for admission by the BJMP.
The icing on the cake is now this: per BJMP policy, the government will pay for Gigi’s expenses in the hospital. How rich, especially since Gigi is precisely accused of pocketing public money and enriching herself at the public’s expense. There was no such offer for Andrea or Madel, who are still raising funds through friends and relatives for their hospital expenses.
Charges against Andrea were recently dismissed by the Pasig court, saying that the prosecutor who filed the information “committed a manifest error and grave abuse of discretion”. It’s a huge relief for Andrea, but one so immensely bittersweet. If she hadn’t been arrested while on her way to the doctor that fateful day in March, would baby Diona Andrea be alive? If she had been Gigi Reyes, would she have been brought to the hospital for tests and observation right away? With a quiet tremor in her voice, her question now is, Will Madel and her baby make it, despite the odds?
Krissy Conti is assistant secretary general for campaigns of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.