DOJ to hold drug summit next year

THE Department of Justice yesterday said it will hold a drug summit next year to tackle the review of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

DOJ Undersecretary Jesse Andres said this will be the next project of the department after the two-day National Jail Decongestion Summit.

The Summit was organized by the Justice Sector Coordinating Council composed of the DOJ, the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Supreme Court.

“The next big project will be the drug summit, where we will have a chance to review this law together with all the stakeholders,” Andres said in his remarks during the Summit.

He said the summit will discuss amendments to RA 9165 so that the said law will be “more attuned to the present times.”

“Sometimes people are charged with non-bailable offenses even with a minuscule amount of drugs confiscated. So, we have to review the threshold amounts and how to afford them bail during the trial so that we don’t congest our jails,” Andres explained.

He also stressed that the government will still go hard after drug offenders but the focus will be on big-time drug traffickers.

Andres said the initiative to decongest the country’s prison facilities will be enhanced with the humanitarian releases of elderly inmates and those with terminal or severe ailments.

He said that two elderly inmates – Gerardo Dela Pena and Roberto Salvador – recently benefitted from the resolution issued by the Board of Pardons and Parole allowing those aged 70 or above after having served a minimum of 10 years of their sentence and were released from prison through executive clemency.

Dela Pena was a political detainee while Salvador was convicted of murder.

“I am glad to inform the body that only this week we have issued Board of Pardons and Parole Resolution No. 08-02-2023. This is a resolution signed only this week and is now being implemented,” Andres added.

The DOJ and the Bureau of Correction have been releasing qualified inmates – the elderly and sick and those who have completed their sentence or paroled – since July 2022.

The BuCor had already released a total of 5,602 inmates from November 2022 to August this year.

Police