De Lima files bill granting medical parole for terminally-ill prisoners

Detained Senator Leila de Lima has filed a bill where terminally-ill prisoners could be granted medical parole that will allow them to serve their sentences under the care of their families or seek better medical treatment outside correctional facilities.

Filed as the Medical Parole Act or Senate Bill No. 2084, the measure seeks to grant medical parole, also known as "compassionate parole," to qualified inmates on humanitarian or medical grounds.

"The grant of medical parole presupposes that the conditional release of a prisoner will not constitute a threat to the safety of the society," De Lima said in a statement, who is also the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development chair.

The bill defined medical parole as the "conditional release of a prisoner from a correctional institution on the ground that he is suffering from a terminal illness or an incapacity that renders him incapable of managing his own affairs."

De Lima said not only will the medical parole provide a humane treatment for terminally-ill or permanently-incapable prisoners, but it will also "rationalize the correctional practice" by allowing them to have their conditional release.

"This bill is meant to allow prisoners to serve out their sentence under the care of their families or seek better medical care outside the correctional facilities," De Lima said.

The senator also pointed out that under the proposed measure, citizens and interested parties are allowed to oppose any application as a matter of check against any improvident or even fraudulent grant of medical parole.

Under the bill, the grant of medical parole may be opposed depending on the severity of the inmate’s illness, whether his release will be a threat to public safety, or whether he or she is likely to commit an offense.

The detained opposition senator also filed Senate Bill No. 1879 last July seeking to put the management of all the country’s jails and prisons under one agency that will provide better rehabilitation programs for all detainees and prisoners. — Jamil Santos/MDM, GMA News