Allow Inmates To Vote, Jail Chief Says

MANILA (Belsie Agustin / 01 Oct) - Bureau of Jail Management and Penology officer-in-charge, Chief Supt Antonio C. Cruz, said he favors the idea on allowing inmates, not yet convicted of a crime, to vote in local and national elections.

He said he would not oppose any plans of putting poll precincts inside jail facilities for prisoners to be able to vote.

Cruz said the Commission on Elections should initiate and finance the establishment of election precincts inside jails where detainees can cast their votes.

He said the proposal was espoused by several civic groups and human rights advocates to uphold inmates’ right to suffrage, citing a provision in Article V, section 1 of the Philippine Constitution which states that: “Suffrage may be exercised by all citizens of the Philippines not otherwise disqualified by law, who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least six months immediately preceding the election.”

The law further provides that, “No literacy, property, or any substantive requirement shall be imposed on the exercise of suffrage.”

Cruz said some 63,000 offenders are currently in jails and many of them wanted to be able to cast their votes.

In 1991 and 2004 elections, Cruz said, qualified inmates of Davao City Jail in Mindanao and Lucena City Jail in Quezon province were allowed to vote. In these elections he added, the COMELEC had set up voting precincts inside said jails and allowed registered inmate-voters to cast their votes.

Some 6,000 inmates in Manila City jail and 3,000 more in Quezon City Jail are awaiting to be given their chance to select, if ever they be allowed to vote, their candidates that can help in their predicament and pursue for their increase of BJMP’s meager budget.

BJMP’s inmates alone represent a large voting block and their votes, if allowed to participate in an election, can make a difference in our present political system.

"Our inmates should be afforded with their basic rights to the Constitution as it also contributes to their rehabilitation," Cruz added.