ISTANBUL

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered “decongestion” of the country’s prisons, directing the Justice Department to "continue releasing persons deprived of liberty," or PDLs who are eligible for parole.

Marcos told a Cabinet meeting in the capital Manila that the PDLs “are languishing in jail because they can’t afford the services of good lawyers.”

“So, that’s why we are in favor now to release many of them,” Marcos said, according to a statement from his office.

“They just needed representation to set them free. So, let’s continue with that,” he added.

According to the Philippines’ Department of Justice (DoJ), around 3,000 PDLs were released from July to December last year “as an immediate step to decongest correctional facilities.”

Marcos also backed DoJ’s plan to “transfer hardened criminals to an Alcatraz-type prison, isolating them from the general population and putting a stop to their criminal activities as they were still able to direct operations while behind bars.”

Also known as Alcatraz or The Rock, US Penitentiary Alcatraz was a maximum security federal prison on Alcatraz Island, over two kilometers (1.25 miles) off the coast of San Francisco, California.

Pointing out “rampant corruption” inside the Bureau of Corrections, Marcos said: “We have to do that … we have to isolate them (hardened criminals) properly.”