MANILA, Philippines – For almost 5 months, Prisoner Jinggoy Estrada, accused of plunder in the multi-billion peso pork barrel scam, has been detained in a jail like no other: a new bungalow in Camp Crame with spacious 32-square-meter rooms, each with toilet and bath, single bed with foam mattress, kitchen sink with cabinets, and a ceiling fan. Were it not for the steel bars and the barbed-wire fence, the rooms would look like basic condominium studios.

On June 29, barely a week after Estrada was detained, he hosted an apparently raucous party to celebrate his wedding anniversary and guests stayed past midnight, beyond visiting hours. At least 50 detainees in the nearby building complained and asked for the transfer of Estrada and his co-accused, Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. This controversy caused the relief of the warden for failing to implement detention rules.

The one-story detention cottage is located in the Philippine National Police Custodial Center, where other high-profile prisoners like former PNP chief Avelino Razon Jr and alleged Communist Party of the Philippines chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife, Wilma, are jailed.

This “special treatment” for Prisoner Estrada has been the subject of an under-the-radar skirmish between the Office of the Ombudsman and the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan.

The Ombudsman wants him transferred to Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig to be “just like other detainees” because the “special treatment” accorded Estrada “creates a negative image of the country’s court and justice system. It casts doubt on the government’s capacity to afford equal protection of the law to all citizens.”

Motions from the Ombudsman and rebuttals from the lawyers of Estrada over the past 4 months show that this case is turning out to be a symbolic battle for equal treatment of prisoners. Their arguments are instructive of the ingrained class distinctions in Philippine society.

Thus far, the country’s judicial system has been kind to VIPs. Take the case of 2 former presidents: Joseph Estrada, accused of plunder, was kept under house arrest in his sprawling estate in Tanay while Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is under hospital arrest.

The newly renovated rooms in the PNP Custodial Center were meant to be officers’ quarters but were converted into a temporary detention facility for senators involved in the pork-barrel cases.

Jail can be hospital or home

Soon after Estrada’s arrest, in July, the Ombudsman asked the anti-graft court to move the accused, together with pork-barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, to Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig. At the time, Napoles was still detained in Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta Rosa, Laguna. She would eventually be moved to Taguig.

(Like Napoles, Gigi Reyes, former chief of staff of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and co-accused in the pork-barrel corruption case, is detained in the Taguig City Female Dormitory in Camp Bagong Diwa.) 

The Ombudsman faced an unsympathetic court which, in the first place, heeded Estrada’s request to have him detained at the PNP Custodial Center because an “ordinary jail poses grave risks…and may endanger his life considering his political stature…” Counsels for Estrada said that the Custodial Center is “better equipped to ensure his security and safety while in detention.”

They also pointed out that what mattered was the “fact of custody,” not the “place of custody.” Interestingly, they argued: “It does not matter if the arrestee is detained in jail or a police station, or even a hospital or a home.”

On the issue of “special treatment,” Estrada’s lawyers said their client deserved it. After all, he is no ordinary citizen: “He is an incumbent Senator of the Republic of the Philippines…son of a former President and a member of the former first family. He was a Mayor of the City of San Juan for many years.”

For the prosecution, “accused Estrada…now sets himself apart from the Filipino masses…The ‘anak ng masa’ wants to have more in law just because he has more in life.”

Jail warden’s testimony

During the oral arguments, the testimony of the jail warden of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), which supervises the Camp Bagong Diwa prison, weakened the case for the prosecution. Senior Superintendent Romeo Salazar Vio testified that Camp Bagong Diwa was overcrowded and that they could not “fully guarantee” providing adequate security to Estrada because of the congestion. 

The ideal ratio between the number of jail guards and detainees is 1 to 7. Current ratio is 1 to 34.

Vio said, though, that he created a Star Team, similar to the PNP’s SWAT Team, to respond to prison riots.

Vio also said there are 2 rooms – 64 square meters each – that could be used by high-profile prisoners. These are offices that could be converted to detention cells and current occupants, BJMP officers, would be moved to another cell. This, Justice Alexander Gesmundo remarked, was an irregular setup. 

After this setback, the prosecution asked the Sandiganbayan to inspect Camp Bagong Diwa. “…Only an ocular inspection can provide this Honorable Court with the best, most accurate and most reliable information regarding the true state of Camp Bagong Diwa…” they argued. They added that renovation of the rooms, found in the Quezon City Jail Annex, can be done in two weeks.

To give the court a complete picture of Camp Bagong Diwa, the prosecution described the premises. There are 7 jail facilities in the camp and each of these is headed by a jail warden. The Abu Sayyaf, Moro National Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front detainees are in separate facilities – not in the proposed detention cell of Estrada which is the Quezon City Jail Annex. There, he will join the suspects of the Maguindanao massacre but he will be kept in a separate room.

The prosecution downplayed the inadequate security, citing Napoles and Reyes as examples. No untoward incident has happened to them, they said, despite the congestion. 

In the recent past, the prosecution went on, “no major reported violence” had occurred in the camp.

The court said no to an ocular inspection.

No transfer

In another rebuff, the court denied in September the prosecution’s motion to transfer Estrada to Camp Bagong Diwa. In a 15-page resolution, the court said that Estrada’s confinement at the PNP Custodial Center is “merely a consequence of his voluntary surrender” to the Center after he was issued a warrant of arrest.

The court dismissed the argument about special treatment and stressed the need to protect the rights of prisoners, invoking the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of which the Philippines is a signatory. Article 10 “imposes a requirement of separation of prisoners in pre-trial detention from those already convicted of crimes.” 

The court cited two examples from Europe wherein jails were found to have violated the ICCPR: overcrowding in Italian prisons and miserable conditions in a Ljubljana prison.

Drawing heavily on Vio’s testimony, the court said it could not “compromise further the safety and security” of Estrada, other inmates of Camp Bagong Diwa, and the BJMP personnel and “aggravate the congested situation.” It concluded: “…the BJMP, in view of their undermanned situation and limited resources cannot guarantee the safety and security of high-profile, high-risk inmates…”

In October, the Ombudsman asked the court to reconsider its ruling. The Sandiganbayan has yet to act on it. – Rappler.com