Case Filed in Court result in injustice and mistrial

1995-2013
Delia Israel was pregnant when first detained on a murder charge at Manila City Jail in 1995. She ended up
giving birth to a daughter who was taken away from her immediately. By the time she was released, her daughter
had already celebrated her 18th birthday. Her case was finally terminated after she pleaded guilty to the lesser
offence of homicide and was consequently released, having been deemed to have served the maximum penalty for
the offence. What makes Delia’s story distinctive is that it took the court eighteen years before a decision was
rendered, during which she was detained because she could not afford bail amounting to 30,000 pesos, or $600.
Delia’s protracted trial and more than eighteen years of preventive imprisonment show a bleak picture of the justice
system in the Philippines. Delia’s story was published by a leading media outlet, GMA News Online, on 25 June 2013
In an article that highlighted the glaringly slow grind of the Philippine Criminal Justice System, with many
more facing the same predicament that she went through. When her story was circulated, the approximate number of
prisoners detained by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in either pretrial detention or under a
conviction of three years or less was 78,836, with a congestion rate of 292.73% of intended occupancy. By the end of
2016, the number of prisoners was 127,339, with an exacerbated jail congestion rate of 511% of capacity.

Reference:
https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irrc-903-8.pdf
 REACTION PAPER

Case of Delia Israel in the year 1995 and was published by a leading media outlet, GMA News Online, on
25 June 2013. She was been detained for about 18 years before pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of homicide and
was consequently released that was just because she can’t afford to pay the P 30,000 pesos.

According to (R.P. Valenzuela, 2018) the Philippine Criminal Justice System is comprised of five "pillars":
the community, law enforcement, prosecution, court, and correction. The common difficulty that each pillar faces is
that it is working at or above its optimal capacity. On the surface, it appears that the slow pace of justice is the fault of
one pillar, but a deeper examination of the problem reveals that the entire scenario is the result of an overburdened
Philippine Criminal Justice System, which affects all five pillars1. With that said, it only shows that the justice system
here in the Philippines is literally a slow-moving phase and that sometimes the only privilege one is treated as a VIP.
The case of Delia Israel is one of many cases that present injustice and mistrial in court. It is truly sad that from the
very beginning up to this moment, justice is not being served equally to the people. Although it is not in every trial,
just thinking about that missed one and being treated differently from others gives so much disappointment in
humanity. What the Philippine Criminal Justice did to Delia Israel will never be forgotten by her entire family. It left a
big wound in their hearts that one of their family suffered difficulties in her life for the past 18 years and that no one
can fill that pain in their hearts.

2Constitution, which states that “[a]ll persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion
perpetua when evidence of guilt is strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, or be released
on recognizance as may be provided by law”. After all, the Philippine Criminal Justice System was never meant to
become a mechanism of oppression, but rather was intended as an instrument of restorativejustice – the kind of
justice that leads to lasting peace (R.P. Valenzuela, 2018). In the said article written by Roy Panti Valenzuela, and
that somehow related to the said case of Delia Israel, it took 18 years before she finally felt free of anything, and that
will serve as one of the best examples to please give each and every one who is dealing with different cases to
become priority in someway just to make the entire trial faster as much as possible, because in reality, not every
person being arrested is the true criminal. It happens that someone puts them in that situation.

Reference:

https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irrc-903-8.pdf