BJMP LAUDS PAO’s SUPPORT TO DECONGEST JAILS

        Bureau of Jail Management and Penology chief, Director Armando M. Llamasares, is gratified with the jail visitation and decongestion program undertaken by the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) headed by Lawyer Persida V. Rueda-Acosta, saying PAO’s effort is a much-needed help to unclog the heavily congested jails in the National Capital Region.

        Llamasares said in his report to Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo V. Puno that lawyers from PAO’s central office visited recently the Quezon City Female Dormitory in Camp Karingal, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City and provided legal counseling, medical check-up of inmates and distributed free eyeglasses and medicines to afflicted female inmates.

        Llamasares disclosed that PAO’s jail visitation, medical mission and decongestion program started last April this year.  Already thousands of inmates from Manila, Quezon, Mandaluyong, Marikina, Kalookan, and Las Piñas city jails have benefited from the ongoing legal, medical, and legal missions of the Public Attorney’s Office.

        As this developed, Llamasares directed the BJMP’s pool of lawyers comprising the uniformed service, paralegal officers and volunteers to sustain the momentum of the agency’s decongestion program.  He said they have long recognized the problem of overcrowding in jails and the enormous amount needed to maintain and feed the 59, 740 inmates nationwide, 20,425 of whom are confined in the NCR jails.