THERE IS A quiet tragedy unfolding in the shadows of the Philippine justice system. It’s not the kind that makes front page headlines. It does not scream or wail. It festers. Slowly. Silently. It lives in the faces of the faceless, in the broken backs of those made to wait—for years, not for their punishment, but for their chance to prove they deserve none.
It jails more people who have not been convicted than those who have. Sixty-five percent of our jail population—yes, sixty-five—is made up of people who are still awaiting trial. Most of them are poor. Most of them are powerless. And most of them have no business being in jail in the first place.
Here’s the grotesque math of our penal arithmetic: if you’re poor and accused of a crime—any crime—you’re almost guaranteed jail time, even if you’re innocent. If you’re rich, you’re almost guaranteed release, even if you’re guilty. It’s not the gravity of the crime that seals your fate. It’s the depth of your pocket.
And that is the cancer at the heart of our bail system.
‘Here’s the grotesque math of our penal arithmetic: if you’re poor and accused of a crime .. you’re almost guaranteed jail time, even if you’re innocent. If you’re rich, you’re almost guaranteed release, even if you’re guilty.’
THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED
The country still clings to a financial bail regime so iniquitous it punishes the poor for being poor. A street vendor caught playing cara y cruz can rot in jail for months. A well-connected drug lord? He posts bail and goes home. A first-time offender in jail. A repeat offender in freedom. That’s the way the system is rigged. It’s not justice. It’s extortion with a legal name.
Even more absurd is how we’ve mangled our own Constitution. The Constitution is clear: bail is a matter of right. Yes, even for capital offenses—unless the prosecution can prove that the evidence of guilt is strong. The burden lies with the State. That is what the framers said.
But in practice, we do the opposite. We arrest, detain, and let the defense prove that the evidence is weak. The accused gets to meet the judge for the first time—if he’s lucky—after three months in jail. Bail petitions for capital offenses take an average of a year to resolve. In that time, the accused has already served a sentence for a crime he might not even be guilty of. And that’s if he’s still alive.
This legal sleight of hand incentivizes something worse: overcharging. Turn a homicide into murder. Turn an act of petty theft into robbery. Inflate the charges so the accused is locked up longer, tortured by time, and pressured to plead guilty just to end the suffering. Justice, in this country, is not blind. It’s blackmailed.
And we wonder why our jails are bursting at the seams.
NEEDNG BAIL REFORM
We need to start from first principles. We need bail reform.
For non-capital offenses, we must abolish financial bail. Most countries have moved on from this barbaric practice. Judges there assess if an accused is likely to appear in court. If yes, he is released on a simple promise to appear. No cash. No bond. Just a presumption of innocence that actually means something.
If the accused is considered a flight risk or a danger to the community, he is released with supervision. Jail is the last resort, not the default. The system works because it trusts the principle it is built upon—that people are innocent until proven otherwise.
We also need something our courts have long ignored: custodial hearings.
Elsewhere in the world, custodial hearings happen within 48 to 72 hours of arrest. A magistrate judge—not a prosecutor, not a police officer—determines if the arrest was legal, and if the accused should be detained. The criteria are clear: is the person a flight risk? Is he a danger to the public? If not, he goes home. If yes, he stays.
WHO HOLDS THE WHIP
The Revised Penal Code allows for this. But in practice, it’s the prosecutors who hold the whip. They decide if the police arrest was valid. They determine the charges. They recommend bail based on a Bail Bond Guide from 2018—one that knows nothing about inflation, poverty, or mercy. The result? Even indigent, non-violent, first-time offenders are locked up. The presumption is not of innocence but of guilt.
Worse, it takes months before the case is raffled to a judge. Then more months before a pre-trial hearing is scheduled. Then more months to ask for bail reduction—or a bail hearing at all. By the time the system coughs up a response, the accused has already served time he didn’t deserve.
We need to reverse the logic. A custodial hearing must happen immediately—48 to 72 hours after arrest. Let a judge decide. Let that judge apply the law, not the whims of a prosecution with a bloated docket and a tendency to punish before it proves. Let the judge ask the only questions that matter: is this man a danger? Will he run? If not, let him go.
WE NEED THE WILL
Coupled with the end of financial bail, this could bring sanity back into our justice system. Preventive detention becomes the exception, not the norm. Accused persons get to live and breathe and work and be with their families while the slow wheels of justice turn. Only 10 percent—those who are truly a threat—will remain detained. Everyone else goes home. As they should.
These are not radical ideas. These are basic, humane, constitutional. They exist in countries that take liberty seriously. We need not invent the wheel. We only need the will.
The tragedy is not that our jails are full. The tragedy is that our conscience is empty.
Bail reform now!
(Editor’s Note: Dr. Raymund E. Narag is an associate professor at the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at the Southern Illinois University. He had his undergraduate courses at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.)