An ugly and embarrassing CNN report on RP

Last Tuesday evening, I was about to turn off the tv set and checked CNN for any last minute breaking news. What I saw surprised me as CNN's Jim Clancy came up with a midnight special report on "Child Prisoners". Apparently, Chris Rogers of ITV News with the help of Fr. Shay Cullen went covert inside a Manila jail, posing as members of an NGO helping prisoners. What they found was a story about many teenage boys, a 14-year-old, a 13-year-old and one as young as 11 years old locked in jail together with adult criminals, many of them sex offenders or even pedophiles. Some had criminal cases, others were there for no apparent reason except that they are homeless and found our filthy jails a tad better than the street.

Also shown was the crammed sardine-can style that prisoners in this country have become accustomed to. For instance, it showed prisoners sleeping in makeshift hammocks hanged on the side of prison bars. One admitted that he had four different places to sleep. A faggot also openly declared before the cameras that he had a special relation with an imprisoned kid.

To be honest about it, I wasn't a bit shocked to see that tv footage because I have been inside our very own infamous Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC) which I would even dare to say is far worse than the jail that Chris Rogers had taken their documentary footage. My feeling was one of shame and embarrassment because that documentary that the whole world had seen showed how our Justice System has totally broken down. My only relief was, this didn't happen in Cebu. That video was shot in Manila.

I'm sure that there would be an outcry against CNN for showing that footage, especially when I woke up yesterday morning and opened my tv and CNN continued to show this documentary. But then, that's the problem when we're faced with the truth and the truth always hurts.

Indeed, it is really time that Filipinos take a more serious look at the poverty of our national government, where the under-funded Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) can no longer keep up even with the barest minimum prison standard acceptable to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). A copy of the CNN video report was given by a UNICEF official to the Philippine Ambassador in London who promised to send it to the proper authorities. Well, they haven't heard from her since.

No doubt, we've got enormous problems, and where is the attention of the Filipino people these days? Watching their true-to-life political soap opera orchestrated by opposition Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson trying to pin corruption charges against Pres. Gloria Arroyo as if he wasn't as tainted as the person he is accusing. Check what the folks in the Senate or Congress are doing. They are all dancing to the tune of political spin masters, which we in the media so often offer them a stage with our front pages nationwide!

So how do we fix this very embarrassing problem? Well, yesterday, you probably got an idea of where the 13th Congress is headed… with ugly politicians giving more importance in finding out ways of breaking the Province of Cebu into four small pieces, something so unnecessary.

The only saving grace in that CNN Report came at the end of that documentary, where Jim Clancy said that there was a UNICEF report that showed that the Philippines was not alone in this problem. Pakistan, Albania, Brazil, Burundi or Indonesia were also doing it. Indonesia was special-mentioned were an eight-year-old was tried in court. But that the Philippines had the starring role for that documentary is embarrassing enough.

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This issue brings me to an article emailed to me from the office of Rep. Joseph Santiago (Catanduanes) which I already wrote in my column in the Philippine Star. It states that the Philippines has one of the world's lowest prison population, which is 107 prisoners for every 100,000 population. Honestly, I found this hard to believe but then Rep. Santiago got those stats from the International Center for Prison Studies, which states, "The Philippines, with a population of 82.5 million, has 88,620 prisoners. The Bureau of Corrections holds 27,582 convicts sentenced to at least three years in prison. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology has custody of 61,038 inmates facing short sentences as well as suspected and accused felons still facing prosecution or trial."

I will not argue the stats of that report because we have nothing opposite to offer. But it is clear that we must work out a plan to get children out of our prisons because that CNN report have shown the world how Filipinos unjustly treat their own children.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila's columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com