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Critique of criminal justice systems that focus on penalizing perpetrators;

Advocacy of giving substantial/equal attention to the rehabilitation and restitution for the victims

Development of holistic and effective crime prevention systems.

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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Humanize the Philippine
Correction System*

By Rep. Edcel C. Lagman

Member, House of Representatives

[This is excerpted from an article written by Hon. Edcal Lagman, representive of the 2nd District of Albay in the House of Representatives.]

THE SECOND Annual National Correctional Consciousness Week should make both government and civil society more aware that prisoners are human and must be treated humanely. They might have violated our laws, transgressed our mores and are being punished for having breached the social contract to maintain peace and order, but they remain to be part of humanity.

True, their incarceration limits their right to liberty but this does not automatically deprive them of their other human, civil and political rights. Least of all does it extinguish that divine spark of goodness embedded in the deepest recesses of their human hearts.

Their retributive isolation from the mainstream of society does not terminate their membership in it. Hence, they are still entitled to some degree of participation, albeit limited, in the democratic processes within and without the prison walls. They are by no means, proscribed from expressing opinions with respect to issues under policy deliberation by government. Some of them may be disenfranchised but I propose automatic reenfranchisement upon release.

I also endorse conjugal visits for both male and female inmates provided that only the legal spouse would be allowed to enjoy this privilege. There should be no discrimination against female inmates with respect to conjugal visits.

Guaranteeing the offender’s circumstantially limited democratic and economic rights should underlie any correctional modernization program. They must be allowed to take part in the decision-making process relative to issues directly or indirectly affecting them.

Hence, any legislative proposal to modernize the correctional system must not only be a collaborative endeavor between government and experts on jail management and penology. It must likewise be a product of a comprehensive consultation with the inmates or clientele of the correctional system. They must be allowed to give their inputs regarding proposals on modernizing the correctional system.

Our recognition of their intrinsically “good” and therefore capable of rehabilitation or correction makes it politically correct to refer to them as clients of rehabilitation centers or correctional institutions, which prepare them for future reintegration with society. Thus, government’s readoption of the death penalty is incongruency in the rehabilitative thrust of the correctional modernization program, which may set back our criminal justice system. In this light, government should review R.A. 7659 of the death penalty law. Moreover, the death penalty has defeated its main purpose of deterring the commission of heinous crimes, more particularly rape.

I have always maintained that what ultimately deters potential offenders committing crimes is not the severity of punishment, such as death by lethal injection, electrocution or by whatever other means, but the certainty of the apprehension, speedy and fair prosecution, and eventual conviction if warranted.

Advocates of shorter imprisonment go further by citing studies, which attempt to prove that even imprisonment is not an effective penal measure. Research findings show that contrary to the widely held view that deprivation of freedom is an appropriate means of resocialization, incarceration “more often strengthens feelings of insecurity, apathy and aggressiveness toward the community, damages further the inmates’ self respect and promotes identification with those who display patterns of criminal behavior. No research has yet been able to show that deprivation of freedom is more effective in preventing recidivism.”

In the absence, however, of a better mode of giving justice to the victims of crimes, incarceration should still be institutionalized.

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