PH government spent more on prisoners than poor families in 2012, says National Statistical Coordination Board

Darwin Amojelar of InterAksyon.com reports that the government "spent more on prisoners’ living expenses than on its support for poor families" in 2012. The information was from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

The report noted that on Monday, June 17, NSCB secretary general Jose Ramon Albert said that based on the 2012 General Appropriations Act, the Aquino administration "spent P19,345 a year in maintaining each prisoner in the country" compared to the "maximum assistance provided to a poor family at P15,000 per year under the conditional cash transfer (CCT)  program" of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). The cost for each inmate "includes food and medicine allowance," Albert said.

Albert went on to explain that the the rise in government expenditure for prisoners can be attributed to the increase in the number of inmates in jails. This, in turn, is the result of the immense backlog of cases waiting for resolution at the metropolitan, municipal and regional trial courts.

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