A Catholic bishop in the Philippines said prisoners, or persons deprived of liberty, and detainees should be included in the government’s mass vaccination program against the new coronavirus disease.
“[Prisoners] deserve to receive assistance just like any other ordinary citizen, especially because their situation makes them ever vulnerable to the virus,” said Bishop Joel Baylon, chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Prison Pastoral Care of the bishops’ conference.
The prelate said persons deprived of liberty are vulnerable to COVID-19 due to the situation in the country’s jails and prisons.
Bishop Baylon has earlier called for the immediate release of vulnerable inmates after a growing number of prisoners were reported to have tested positive of the disease last year.
The bishop proposed that inmates who are found to be positive of COVID-19 be placed in medical facilities and not in penal institutions so that their needs can be attended to properly.
“With the terrible congestion in our penal institutions, the transmission to other inmates is very high and it will be very catastrophic,” said the priest.
On Tuesday, a group of families and friends of political prisoners called on the government for the inclusion of their kin in the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
In a letter sent to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Fides Lim, the spokesperson of the group Kapatid, said prisoners should not be denied their right to get a shot of the vaccine “as they are clearly not spared from the dangers posed by the contagious and deadly disease.”
Kapatid called on the government “to acknowledge that prisoners are in no way safe from the threats of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“With an unenviable record of having the highest jail congestion rate in the world, Philippine prisons are a death trap,” said Lim.
Even before the pandemic, prison agencies reported that one detainee dies every day at the country’s main prison while between 300 to 800 inmates die every year in facilities run by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.
