Human rights perspectives and modern tecnologies toward social development are keys to advocacies. strategies, identification of targets, early releases and interventions for the well being of Persons Deprived of liberty (PDLs).
This completed study discusses the jail visitation services of PAO with empirical data and human rights- based approach, highlighting the PAO-Central Office Legal, Medical, Dental, and Optical Jail Visitation Program, an outreach program for PDLs, headed by this author. Her team of medical professionals are PAO employees from the Central Office, composed of five medical doctors, a dentist, a medical technologist, and 12 registered nurses. Their number is augmented by doctors, dentists, and optometrists from partner institutions of PAO. The program started in 2007 and is now being continuously conducted in various jails in the Philippines. It strengthens the non-judicial service of PAO, that is the Regular Monthly Jail Visitation of District Offices Nationwide. The combined efforts of the legal and medical teams behind the said programs contributed to the release of the 87,656 PDL-clients of PAO in 2023.
The said jail visitation programs were authorized by previous secretaries of justice, and fortified by the issuance of the current secretary of justice with Department Order No. 510, dated September 28, 2022, enjoining the Chief Public Attorney (this presenter) to, among others, identify PDLs in the facilities of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, and Bureau of Corrections, "who are eligible to be released, and provide legal assistance to facilitate their release, in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations".