In the Belly of the Beast: Reflections on the Three-Week Engagement in the Philippine Criminal Justice System

Three weeks. A blip in the calendar, a blink in a bureaucrat’s eye. But in the winding corridors of the Philippine criminal justice system, it feels like time congeals, stretches, and snaps. Three weeks is a lifetime. Or several lifetimes, if you’re a person deprived of liberty, waiting for the wheels of justice to turn.

So much done in so little time. Tired? Certainly. Gratified? More than words can measure. I met the Secretary of Justice, talked shop about dreams that, for many, are far-fetched: the integration of the BJMP and BuCor. A unified, humane, and intelligent correctional system—one that doesn’t see inmates as inventory, but as human beings who can return to society whole. Or at least less broken.

Then there were the judges. Many judges. Different places, different faces. But one thing stood out—the courts in this country are like islands. Each judge a sovereign ruler, their courtroom a tiny republic. They have their own rituals, their own interpretations, their own tempo. Some march briskly toward justice. Others still finding ways to improve.

Still, there are pockets of brilliance. I witnessed courtrooms where judges did not wait for the system to work—they made it work. Judges who took it upon themselves to gather the probation documents even before a sentence was inked. No passing of the buck. No tossing the file into the void. It was all there, ready for the probation officers to step in—not as errand boys, but as real agents of rehabilitation.

That is the best of our system. When people stop waiting for reforms from above and simply start doing the right thing below.

Yes, three weeks isn’t much. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the courts, from the jails, from the endless back-and-forth between paper and people—it’s that real change doesn’t wait for grand legislation. It sneaks in through courtroom doors, it sits quietly in sidebars, it speaks in soft voices and small acts. And sometimes, it’s enough to keep you going. And dreaming.