PIMENTEL ALARMED OVER HIGH
DEATH INCIDENCE IN STATE PRISONS

The death penalty may have been abolished in the country, but an increasing number of inmates in state prisons are dying by the hundreds every year due to other reasons.

Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) said the death convicts may have been spared from execution as a result of the repeal of the death penalty three years ago.

But Pimentel said an average of 350 prisoners die every year from various kinds of ailments, including degenerative diseases due to old age.

These deaths occur in the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City and various jails in the provinces being maintained and supervised by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

Pimentel said it is appalling that while the death penalty was repealed to give condemned criminals a second lease on life and enable them to reform, many of them have succumbed to ailments.

In most cases, he said the inmates contracted diseases due to the unhygienic conditions and insufficient food intake in prison. He said the condition of the sick deteriorates due to poor medical care.

Pimentel also said he learned that the alarming incidence of deaths among inmates has given rise to another problem: that of disposing the cadavers.

"On one occasion, a team of assistants from my office went to the morgue of the Bureau of Corrections to find out the situation. And the report I got was they saw a lot of cadavers not being disposed of in that place because their families could not raise the amount needed to bring the bodies back home," Pimentel said.

"To my mind, that is a situation that needs correction in the Bureau of Corrections."

He said he intends to propose an amendment in the appropriation of the Department of Justice, which has supervision over the Bureau of Corrections, under the 2008 national budget to provide funds for the proper disposition of the remains of inmates who have died in prison.