Our community service in RELSTRI was a different experience for me. It was a community service in the Manila City Jail and our job was to interview inmates, get information about their cases, update the latest status of their cases in the courts and report it to the paralegal officer. Seems like an easy task but it’s not really that simple. You have to deal with the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy especially when it’s already time to validate the cases of the people we interviewed. Some people in the Manila City Hall were inefficient but we just had to deal with them as they really can’t be fired in an instant and I’m sure that they will not be giving the information that we wanted once we messed up with them. But good thing that the paralegal officers were very nice and they were efficient in working. Some of them were even working with just typewriters to type out their legal documents. It’s the year 2007 for Christ’s sake. Everybody’s using their personal computers. What has become of the modernization plan of the government? Basically speaking, we had to deal with the pollution, inconveniences and the hassles of roaming around downtown Manila. And also the street children.

We were quite compelled to endure that to be of help to the inmates. Particular of those were the alleys of Recto which were quite unpleasant because of the crowded people, the crowded stores and the stinky smell. You won’t really like it when it rains because the road becomes a mini-river and the kids get mischievous and they are always playing in the rain. There is also a 90 percent probability that there will be mini-sea in the sidewalks everytime it rains in the Recto Area because the floodwater creates a wave effect that reaches the sidewalk. And there is always the threat of the bad elements. Recto’s been known for its outlaws that will steal your belongings from you if you are not that careful enough. We also had to endure a variety of stinky smells from the smell of the canals and the lasting scent of urine to the odd smell of old buildings and old materials. Another place is the old Ombudsman Building in front of the Central Terminal which is already old, dirty, and is needing of a major fix. I wonder how the office people are able to stay in that place and have the patience to work in such a creepy and old place. The Manila City Hall was also a non-exception in the list because there are also creepy rooms in the city hall although it was better than the old Ombudsman Building.

I got to immerse and talk with real people with real and stories to tell. At first they seem to be scary to talk to because of their current stature in life as inmates, but when I started talking to them, they were nice and accommodating. And while I may be loathing the jologz of the Friendster and of the Internet, these people and their stories are no laughing matter. We interviewed people who come from families who wouldn’t even reach the stature of the people in the link that I posted. It’s really not a good sight. What’s worse is these people have been arrested for cases that they did not commit on most instances. I recall an account of an inmate that said that he was just arrested because the arresting officers wanted to, a case that the inmate was just “napagtripan” by the arresting officer. There was this case that one inmate told me that his case was without a complainant. There were other cases where the inmates want to know their next hearing and arraignment because their last hearing was a long time ago or worse, the inmate still has not been given a hearing yet. There was another case that I interviewed wherein the person has already served his sentence but due to the confusion with which version of the laws will be used in the decision of his term in the correctional facility, he is still in prison up to this moment. There was this inmate that was just arrested via the use of planted evidence and there were also some people who wholeheartedly admitted their crimes.

Their cases varied from theft, lasciviousness, malicious mischief, violation of ordinances and there were also some which cases were murder, homicide, kidnapping and use of illegal drugs. The police officers only gave relatively light cases to us but I, for myself, got shocked with some cases like attempted homicide by one of the inmates that I interviewed. Following them up was no easy task because the courts that managed the cases were in different offices and so we were in a mad scramble to finish the cases as soon as possible. We finished the follow-ups last Friday. Some cases without complainants already had complainants. The cases without hearings or arraignments already had hearings or arraignments. Some cases we held for verification were transferred to other branches and so information was not available. The verification process was all one big tedious process.

But the bottom line and probably the important learnings that I got from this experience is that I have verified to myself the injustices of the police and judicial system in this nation. I used to have a receptive perception of that notion against policemen but I have opened up my eyes in that realm. I’m not generalizing but there are really bad eggs in the police that take advantage of the weak and powerless people, using their position in the police system as leverage for them to commit offenses against the rights of these people and run away from it as if nothing happened. This has been a social cancer since then. The rich people get away with everything that they do and yet the poor and helpless people suffer the most. The justice system has been based on the palakasan and payamanan system where rich and influential people always have the upper hand in the judicial and criminal system and this has been the malaise that has been on this nation ever since. I have also seen how inefficient the correctional facilities in this nation are. These are way inferior to the other correctional facilities in the other nations. Seeing these correctional facilities will make you think twice of doing any evil deed. It’s really gross and disgusting. I wonder how the police are able to survive that environment. I even saw rats in the paralegal office and I think the government has to fix the correctional facility because it’s really more costly than beneficial for both the jail officers and the inmates themselves. The place also easily floods when it rains. I remember one time when I had to outwit the flood to get to the paralegal office and I ended up with my pants being dirty and wet and my foot being smelly. It really stinks there when it floods. The correctional facility is in bad shape in simple terms.

There has something to be done with this nation’s infrastructures, facilities and most importantly, the justice system of the Philippines. What has been the purpose of the laws for us? For us to have something to outlaw and violate? Something has to be done or else we will all sink in the floodwater.