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It was 2025’s first Sunday and Cath* decided to visit her detained father to kick off the year.
At around 12:40 pm on January 5, in Camp Bagong Diwa, she had her packed food inspected and logged her name in the security area as part of the protocols to enter the jail. It was supposedly a regular routine, so when one of the jail officers brought out a waiver and asked her to sign it, she questioned the document’s purpose.
Signing the waiver meant Cath would allow jail officers to inspect her body to check for alleged contrabands — in other words, consent to a strip search. This search involves the removal of a person’s clothes, including undergarments, to permit a visual inspection of a person’s body.
Strip searches like these must stop, according to the United Nations (UN) Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders with their Commentary, also known as the Bangkok Rules, which say that alternatives like body scans must be developed.
Cath knew this and argued that she will not sign the waiver as it was against her will and rights. She told the jail officers that they were visiting her political prisoner father, and that she already visited him many times prior, without having to sign any type of waiver.
“There are no special treatment for political prisoners here. Even before, we implement strip searching,” the jail officer insisted to Cath.
The guards told Cath that only women are subjected to strip search because “women are better at hiding contraband than men.” Cath said she was further pressured by the jail officials by claiming that Sharon Cabusao-Silva, the wife of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Adelberto Silva, had also undergone a strip search.
Due to the pressure and her desire to visit her father, she eventually signed the document and underwnt a body search, too. But in the waiver, Cath said she added the word “UP” or under protest, to indicate her objection to the intrusive policy.
“The female searcher told me to lift my T-shirt. I was wearing breast pads as I am a nursing mother. Then, she asked me to lower my pants and underwear, bend over, and spread my buttocks so she could check in the mirror,” Cath narrated.
“I was trembling from stress, as if I was having high blood pressure. The back of my head ached from anger. I was nearly in tears as I followed her instructions. I kept thinking, ‘Isn’t it enough that officials jailed my parents over trumped-up charges and do they still need to trample upon our rights?'” she added.
Rappler has already reached out to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) for comment. We will update this story once they respond.
Against the rules
After the search, Cath saw Sharon, who told her that she did not sign any form of waiver. Another wife of a political prisoner whom Cath met also denied signing a document. Cath had been deceived.
“It is disturbing that jail officers should make up lies and single out visitors of political prisoners to pressure them into signing waivers that have become an instrument of coercion,” political prisoners support group Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim said.
On January 9, Kapatid assisted Cath in filing a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to raise concern over her experience at Metro Manila District Jail Annex 4. They also urged the commission to probe the policy anew.
“The abuse Cath endured, particularly as a first-time nursing mother still recovering from postpartum depression, is not an isolated incident. Her affidavit reveals a pattern of systemic abuse and gross lack of education and training among jail authorities, who failed to follow the BJMP’s own rule that strip search should only be conducted when necessary, and that the most invasive, degrading, traumatic body cavity search only when there is probable cause after a strip search,” Lim said.
“Kapatid would like to stress that we families of political prisoners subject ourselves to body frisking and physical inspection of items we bring in, mostly food. We understand the rationale for search procedures but which must be carried out with clear justification, proportionality, and adherence to legal standards, including the BJMP’s own ‘Standard Operating Procedures No. 05-10 on the Conduct of Body Searches on Jail Visitors,'” she added.
The UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners rules, also known as Mandela rules (named after former South African president Nelson Mandela), prescribe the humane way of handling prisoners. Specifically, rule 52, section 1, states that intrusive searches should be done only if there’s no other way, and must be done in private and “by trained staff of the same sex as the prisoner.”
“Body cavity searches shall be conducted only by qualified health-care professionals other than those primarily responsible for the care of the prisoner or, at a minimum, by staff appropriately trained by a medical professional in standards of hygiene, health and safety,” section 2 states.
In addition, rule 20 of the Bangkok Rules suggests the use of alternative screening methods for body searches such as scans. The rule says this is “to avoid the harmful psychological and possible physical impact of invasive body searches.”
Disturbing trend
Lim said Cath’s experience marked the second time that a strip search happened in Camp Bagong Diwa since 2023. It was also the third violation in two years, at least in the case of political prisoners’ families. In 2020, Jimmylisa Badayos, a partner of a political prisoner, also filed a complaint with the CHR after she was subjected to a strip search inside the New Bilibid Prison.
Just last year, fresh complaints were filed by wives of political prisoners with the CHR, led by 63-year-old Gloria Almonte, who experienced the same intrusive search inside Bilibid. Lim explained to Rappler that the victims moved forward and decided to lodge complaints because they were families of political prisoners, which meant that they have to stand up for their rights and set examples.
But the other alarming fact was that intrusive search was not limited to these families only, but also included ordinary citizens. Other families of persons deprived of liberty (PDL) opted not to publicize their plight due to fear, Lim told Rappler.
“The relatives of non-political prisoners are afraid to file formal complaints because they are afraid of retaliation on their visiting right, and also [for their] imprisoned relatives inside the jails,” Lim added in a mix of Filipino and English.
Former PDL-turned-criminology professor and prisons expert Raymund Narag supported Lim’s claim and told Rappler that the intrusive search in jails had existed before. In fact, he said that when he was incarcerated between 1995 to 2002 in Quezon City Jail, his then-unmarried sister was also subjected to body and cavity search.
The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), which oversees prisons, earlier explained that they implement the rule to avoid contraband from getting into their farms. It has been a well-entrenched policy, it seems, as the BuCor had promoted a corrections officer in April 2024 for seizing suspected shabu discovered through a strip search of a visitor.
But after Almonte’s complaint last year, BuCor ordered a probe into the incidents and relieved some of its personnel. The bureau also suspended the policy, “pending the result of the investigation being conducted by the bureau” and to give the office the time to review the rules.
“And we have seen that whenever we file these formal complaints, the lawbreakers, who should be the first to be enforcing and abiding by the guidelines, are compelled to follow the law and to suspend the unlawful procedure,” Lim said.
But it was revealed during BuCor’s budget deliberations in September 2024 that the promised review has yet to be implemented. The bureau and the CHR blamed each other for the delay because the bureau claimed that review was “subject to suggestions from the CHR on how to effectively implement safety measures.” (READ: CHR, BuCor blame each other for delay in strip search policy review)
For its part, the CHR said it offered “technical assistance” to the bureau, which means it will provide recommendations based on the guidelines that will be provided by the BuCor. Until now, it is unclear whether the review has been finalized or not.
Pending the updates on the review, Gabriela lawmaker Arlene Brosas said in 2024 that she has still been receiving reports about women being subjected to intrusive searches in detention facilities.
Alternatives
Kapatid has been reiterating that their group and political prisoners acknowledge the need for tight security, especially in jails. However, intrusive searches should not be a rule, but an exception that should be made “only if absolutely necessary,” Lim said.
Narag, who acts as consultant to BuCor and BJMP, reiterated that body searches are intrusive in nature, and do not only violate rights, but also trample on people’s dignity. The Southern Illinois University Carbondale professor said these types of searches should only be done if there is intelligence or verified information that jail visitors might be possessing contraband.
“The information should be vetted carefully. And in times, you would need a court order to conduct cavity search because anything that might be seized from a subject might be used against them,” Narag told Rappler in Filipino. “The policy should not be used to punish the PDLs and their visitors. It should not be used regularly, ordinarily, for no apparent reasons or for punishment purposes.”
“There has to be a continuous educational program and training to remind the implementers of the law to follow…. They do not know what to implement, which is why these misdemeanors are repetitive, including the willful violations of the law by the law enforcers themselves,” Lim said.
Narag added that it is also seldom that contrabands come from visitors. Aside from using technology to inspect visitors, another option to address the problem is to provide a way for these PDLs and their families to meet each other, without the need for visitors to enter jail or prison facilities.
“There will be guards on duty to check the PDLs and visitors’ movements inside. They can still visit their detained loved ones, they can still talk to each other, but there will be no opportunity to hand over contrabands,” the criminology professor explained.
At the end of the day, PDLs are only temporarily secluded from society as part of their punishment. Security protocols should be in place, obviously, but PDLs’ human rights, as well as of their families, should be respected at all times as prescribed by both local and international laws. – Rappler.com
*Name withheld for privacy. Some quotes were translated into English for brevity
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