‘Green Bones’ and the state of our prisons

The film, “Green Bones,” won big at the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) last December, hoarding six major awards, including the Best Picture.

But Dennis Trillo and Ruru Madrid’s excellent acting wasn’t the only thing that caught the public’s attention and the MMFF jury’s nod. It’s how the film managed to put a spotlight on a long-pestering issue in our criminal justice system: how our jails are managed, which provides a perfect backdrop to many cases of injustice in our midst.

“Green Bones” is armed with a realistic storyline, thanks to the thought-provoking story concept by Joseph Rubio and Kristian Julao, and the screenplay written by National Artist Ricky Lee and Angeli Atienza.

Director Zig Dulay brought to life the storyline, masterfully using his camera to follow the main protagonists Domingo Zamora (Trillo), the convicted killer of his sister and niece, and newly minted prison guard Xavier Gonzaga (Madrid) in their separate, but parallel, quests for justice. Fate brought their destinies together, as they crossed paths inside an Iwahig-type prison colony, where everything came to a head.

Dulay zoomed in on the injustice that Gonzaga was determined to help extinguish, only for the audience to realize at the end that it was Zamora, the stereotypical villain (“usual suspect” in police parlance), who was the victim all along. That was the twist to the story—he became the fall guy in a tragic murder case just to protect an innocent but vulnerable girl.

Zamora, like many persons deprived of liberty (PDLs), was a poor, petty criminal who was hopelessly trapped in a spiral of guilt, revenge, and punishment, whether justified or not. Zamora’s refusal to speak was an additional aggravation that only exacerbated the entire situation and set the stage for the film’s nail-biting denouement.

A moviegoer can easily relate to the story of how justice has eluded the voiceless in our midst. My only reservation about the film concerns its cinematography. The night scenes are too dark, and the repeated flashbacks can be disorienting.

Jail congestion

Coincidentally, a day after “Green Bones” swept the major awards at MMFF, the Inquirer published a story about some of the prison issues that “Green Bones” inadvertently unearthed. The only thing that makes this prison story different is that it hasn’t ended yet, so there’s no resolution or happy ending. While “Green Bones” is set in a penal colony, the Commission on Audit (COA) tackles ordinary jails where inhumane treatment of detainees plays out in a loop. (“COA: PH jails need 550,000 sq m additional space,” News, 12/28/24)

The COA, perhaps the last government agency you would expect to bring attention to this long-running issue, has spoken out about jail congestion. One could almost feel the suffocation that the state auditors felt when they witnessed firsthand 117,425 PDLs crammed in a combined cell area of only 216,788 square meters nationwide in 2023.

To be graphic about it, “three in five jails in the country were still bursting at the seams,” the Inquirer report written by Kathleen de Villa said. According to COA, jail congestion rates reached a whopping 2,827 percent in 2023, which means that 324 out of the total 482 jail facilities nationwide were “overcrowded … far beyond the acceptable standards set by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the United Nations for the treatment of prisoners.”

One can easily make the deduction that either the police are now efficiently arresting more criminals, or the government is not building enough jail space as the population grows. The problem is surely compounded by the slow-paced trial of crimes in this country (police estimate an average of eight years for a murder trial to finish).

Habitable space

The COA audit report easily validates anecdotal reports that in the worst city jails in Metro Manila, PDLs are not only packed like sardines; they have to take turns sleeping while others sit or stand beside them because of a severe lack of jail space.

With lack of proper ventilation, these PDLs are living in a hellish environment, where the spread of disease is par for the course, due to overcrowding and lack of hygienic measures in place. And we’re not even discussing the quality and quantity of food that these PDLs are being fed, or their privacy—whatever remains of it.

What is horrendous about this whole thing is that, generally, in municipal, city, and district jails, PDLs have not been convicted yet. They are there while awaiting their trials, but many cases are not heard due to the lack of lawyers for poor defendants. Thus, when you take jail congestion and slow trials into consideration, arguably there is already a miscarriage of justice because the state is unwittingly punishing even the innocent (“justice delayed, justice denied”).

It is therefore correct for the COA to recommend the “early release of qualified detainees” based on the good conduct time allowance law instead of continuing to ignore the inmates’ predicament before formal judgment.

—————-

For comments: mubac@inquirer.com.ph