United Nations, Philippines to launch ‘Laya Calculator’

MANILA, Philippines — A new web-based tool that accurately computes prisoner release dates will soon be launched nationwide, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced.

In the coming months, UNODC and the Philippine government will begin the nationwide rollout of the “Laya Calculator,” a digital platform designed to help determine accurate prisoner release dates.

“For many prisoners in the Philippines, the question of when their freedom will be regained has long been clouded by uncertainty. That uncertainty began to give way to clarity with the launch of the Laya Calculator,” UNODC said.

In most jurisdictions, release dates are computed simply by adding the length of an imprisonment penalty to the date a person enters detention.

“In the Philippines, however, prisoner release dates depend on several data points, including arrest dates, police detention, pretrial confinement, sentence service and earned sentence-reducing credit, to name only a few,” UNODC said.

While corrections agencies are mandated to maintain prisoner records, including tracking release dates, limited capacity and technical constraints pose serious challenges in fulfilling this duty.

Designed for accessibility, the tool requires only basic information related to a person’s imprisonment. It then generates precise release dates based on the minimum and maximum penalties imposed, adjusted for earned sentence-reducing credits.

The Laya Calculator began as a programmed spreadsheet co-designed with local stakeholders and was later validated by UNODC’s Korea Statistics Center of Excellence.

It was piloted at Zamboanga City Jail and Negros Occidental District Jail in 2024 before evolving into a simplified, web-based application that is freely accessible online, expanding access to information that is otherwise difficult to obtain.