Baseline Study on the Philippine Penal Conditions: Nurturing a Human Rights Based Approach to Penal Management •······································································································································································································································· that originate in the NBP. In the Philippine context, "prisons" refer to institutions managed and run by the BuCor. "Jails" are managed and run by two types of agencies in the Philippines. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) has administrative and operational supervision over District, City and Municipal Jails. The BJMP, in turn, is under the administrative supervision of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG). Currently, the BJMP supervises a total of 461 District, City, and Municipal Jails nationwide, with a grand total of 96,000 inmates. While the BJMP and the BuCor share similar mandates, they operate under different operating manuals and are supervised by different set of department personnel. Provincial governments, on the other hand, independently manage and run their respective Provincial Jails. It is the provincial governors who appoint their respective provincial jail wardens. While the DILG exercises supervision over provincial governments, the DILG does not have a direct control over the Provincial Jails. Unlike the BJMP Jail wardens, Provincial Jail wardens have more leeway in administering their jail facilities, as there are no central agencies that supervise their tasks. "Jail" institutions in the Philippines take into custody PDLs that are undergoing trial in their respective courts and those PDLs who had been convicted with a penalty of not more than three years. However, due to the lengthy court trial procedures, w here some inmates undergo trial for 3 years or more, the BJMP Jails and Provincial Jails, by default, also cater to inmates with long-term confinement. This muddles the philosophical and legal differences between "prisons" and "jails" . Two othe r developme nts have blurred the specific functions of agencie s managing the jails. First, there are "Municipal Jails" that are still being managed by the Philippine National Police and their transfer to the BJMP has not occurred. 6 Second, there are some provincia l governments who inked a M emorandum of Agreeme nt with the BJMP so that the Provincial Jails under their care are currently being managed by the BJMP. 7 The public and the media therefore are clueless as to why the Batangas Provincial Jail is managed by a warde n appointed by the Provincial Governor, whereas the Batangas City Jail is managed by a warden w ho is a career officer from the BJMP. Additionally, there are some governmental agencies whose ma in tasks are law e nforcement but are saddled with penal work. The Philippine National Police (PNP), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) are agencies that also maintain the ir own detention faciliti es (also called "holding cells"). By law, PDLs who stay in these facilities should not extend for more than 36 hours, or up to the time that criminal charges are lodged against them in court. These inmates should be immediate ly transferred to e ither a BJMP Jail or a Provincial Jail. Howeve r, many PDLs end up in jails for longer periods (1 month to 3 years), and some inmates actually end up serving their sentences in these facilities. As such, though intended as places of short-te rm or temporary incarceration, Detention and Holding cells of the PNP, NBI, and PDEA had become synonymous with BJMP/ Provincial "jails" and BuCor "prisons." Two other agencies are mandated to detain people going against the law. These include the Bureau of Immigration (Bl) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). While traditionally these agencies have very specific functions and cate r to unique types of PDLs, more recent deve lopments point to the ir As of August, 2015, there a re still around 474 Municipal Jails u nder the j urisdiction of the PNP. The BJMP has issued a Stand ard Operating Procedure on the transfer of the remaining PNP Municipal Jails to the BJMP There are a round 11 provincial jails and 4 sub-provincial jails which have inked a Memorandum of Agreement with the BJMP. The BJMP is expecting more Provincial Jails to be t ransferred under their control. However, funding and person nel arrangements had de railed the transfer of the provincial j ails. The BJMP has issued a Standard Operating Procedure to guide efforts i n t he t ransfer of Provincial Jails. 10