Some officials are considering the possibility of decriminalizing defamation and abortion to relieve the country’s prisons.
The Attorney General of the Philippines has asked legislators to decriminalize defamation and abortion as part of the state’s efforts to relieve prison congestion.
“This is one of the solutions being advocated,” Department of Justice spokesman Jose Dominic F. Clavano IV told reporters on the sidelines of a prison decongestion summit in Manila on Wednesday. “The reduction of prison admissions, the reduction of bail rates and the increase in prison capacity have also been considered,” he added.
Mr Clavano said that it was up to Congress to decide what should be done: “It’s not up to us. We leave it to them, because they have a more holistic view of the situation.”
The President of the House of Representatives, Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, said at the summit that “the classification system of the penal code, which is almost a century old, needs to be revised.”
Seven of the ten Philippine detention centers are overcrowded, with an average overcrowding rate of 386%, according to the Justice Sector Coordinating Council, which includes the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Raising the threshold of proof for preliminary enquiries, reducing bail and passing a bill to rehabilitate drug-addicted offenders were also on the table at the summit. The proposed measures also include the creation of a Department of Corrections and Penology, which will unify the State’s prison, jail and probation management systems.
“The Supreme Court is considering revising the rules of criminal procedure to ensure that cases are dealt with more quickly,” said Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo. “The overcrowding of prisoners in detention centers is neither human nor reformative,” he added.
About 350,000 suspects were arrested in anti-illegal drugs operations under ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte and 24,000 under President Ferdinand R. Marcos.
Humane treatment of prisoners and appropriate rehabilitation programs would reduce relapses and encourage good behavior in prisons, “giving them a chance to genuinely reform and reintegrate into society,” said Interior Secretary Benjamin C. Abalos, Jr.
Up to six years imprisonment
A few weeks ago, Human Rights Watch issued a statement explaining that “threats by members of the Philippine Congress to withdraw funding from the National Human Rights Commission have had the effect of weakening its support for abortion rights.”
Members of the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives said during deliberations on the national budget in November that they would seek to cut funding to the commission, which is mandated by the 1987 constitution.
One senator said the commission should receive “no budget” unless it demonstrated a “strong position” against abortion. On November 15, the chairman of the committee, Richard Palpal-latoc, reversed the committee’s position in favor of abortion rights and stated that the committee was “against abortion, except in extreme circumstances.”
Abortion has been criminalized in the Philippines for over a century. The criminal provisions relating to abortion contain no exceptions authorizing abortion, in particular, to save the life of the pregnant woman or to protect her health.
Abortion was criminalized by the Penal Code of 1870 under Spanish colonial rule, and the penal provisions were incorporated into the Revised Penal Code adopted in 1930 under the American occupation of the Philippines.
The criminalization of abortion has not prevented abortion, but on the contrary has made the procedure dangerous and potentially fatal for more than half a million Filipino women who attempt to terminate their pregnancies every year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
In 2008, it was estimated that the criminal ban on abortion in the Philippines led to the deaths of at least 1,000 women and complications for 90,000 others.
Doctors and midwives who carry out abortions face up to six years imprisonment under the current Criminal Code.
These criminal penalties are supplemented by separate laws that provide penalties for a range of medical professions and healthcare workers, such as pharmacists who dispense abortifacients. Under these laws, these practitioners can have their license to practice suspended or revoked if they are caught in the act of abortion-related activities. Women who undergo an abortion, for whatever reason, are liable to a prison sentence of between two and six years.
The current penalty for defamation goes from six months to 4 years. The Philippine online defamation law, passed in 2012, has been used repeatedly against journalists, columnists, government critics and ordinary social network users. The Department of Justice’s Cybercrime Bureau reported that 3,700 online defamation cases had been filed as of May 2022.
