A national shame

A national shame

By Luis V. Teodoro
Business World

Not only the alleged involvement of government officials in it is among the fallouts in the investigation of — and hopefully the prosecution and punishment of those responsible for — the murder of broadcaster and online journalist Percy Lapid (Percival Mabasa). It is also its reminding the public and the rest of the world of one of the best-kept, but nevertheless well-known secrets in this country: the dismal and shameful state of its prisons.

That seeming contradiction is based on every administration’s pretense that everything is as it should be in them, despite most Filipinos’ knowledge that it is not. Even those who have had only minimal contact with Philippine prisons know how congested, filthy, and dangerous for most inmates they are.

Also well-known is that uniquely oxymoronic Philippine penology invention, the “living out prisoner,” a felon who is usually monied and well-connected enough to gain the privilege of continuing to live the life to which he is accustomed outside prison walls despite his criminal conviction, while his poorer counterparts, and even those still awaiting trial, rot in their overcrowded cells. And who can forget the scandalous pardons of even the most vicious but equally well-connected thieves and murderers during the Duterte regime?

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