The Price of Innocence

There is no pain like being forgotten by the very system sworn to protect you.

Imagine being hauled into a jail cell. Not convicted, not sentenced, not proven guilty—but accused. Imagine spending five, ten, twenty years inside that cramped, dingy cage. Sharing space the size of a broom closet with ten, fifteen others. Imagine sleeping on cold cement, eating slop passed as food, bathing in water that smells of rust and rot. Imagine missing your child’s first steps, your mother’s funeral, your wife’s slow descent into despair. And then imagine walking free one day, acquitted of all charges. Innocent all along.

Now imagine being told you don’t deserve compensation because technically, you were “not yet convicted.”

This is the logic of our Supreme Court. In a ruling in the Case: Mohammad versus Office of the Secretary (G.R. 256116), promulgated February 27, 2024, it drew a line between two people: one who was acquitted at trial and another acquitted on appeal. The latter, the Court says, may be entitled to compensation. The former, astonishingly, is not. Both lost years of their lives, rotted in the same overcrowded jail, endured the same psychological torment, faced the same crushing stigma. One gets recompense. The other gets silence.

It is a cruel distinction. And it is wrong.

There is no humane or moral basis to say that a person who spent 15 years in jail awaiting trial and was acquitted suffered less than one who spent 15 years serving a conviction and was later cleared. The concrete does not soften under your body just because you haven’t been convicted. The bars do not bend. The shame does not lessen. The damage does not discriminate.

In fact, the injustice may be even greater for those detained pretrial. They are presumed innocent—supposedly cloaked in the full presumption of the Constitution—yet are treated like animals. Their only “crime” was poverty. Had they money, they would have posted bail. Had they power, they would not have been arrested at all.

We’ve seen it in BJMP Jails. Inmates, some of them our own friends, have served 20 to 30 years without a final conviction. They age behind bars, their bodies deteriorating, their minds haunted. When finally released, they must learn how to cross the street again, how to use a phone, how to be human in a world that forgot them.

And then, nothing. No letter of apology. No government compensation. No attempt to make them whole.

And yet, despite this bleak landscape, there is light. There are jail wardens and prison officers who push for speedy case disposition. Paralegal aides who volunteer to sort through mountains of records, sometimes just to find one missing document that could mean someone’s release. There are judges—courageous, compassionate—who insist that the courts work not just for the powerful, but for the powerless. I have sat in their courtrooms. I have seen them expedite hearings, sign releases, insist on compassion.

And there are the probation and parole officers—overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated—who still visit clients in far-flung barangays, who offer counseling, who try to believe in second chances in a country that barely believes in first ones. In Dagupan, in Agoo, in San Fernando, in Manila, in Baguio—I’ve seen these officers bring dignity to a system built on neglect.

But they cannot fix the system alone.

We need a law. We need legislation that recognizes that wrongful imprisonment—whether due to mistaken conviction or protracted trial detention—is a wound that deserves healing. That recognizes no one should be punished for being poor. That acknowledges the State has a moral debt to those it imprisons without cause.

To be clear: this is not about emptying the jails. It is about justice. It is about fairness. It is about a government that should say, “We are sorry,” and mean it—not just with words, but with restitution.

There are countries that compensate wrongfully detained individuals with monetary redress, counseling, housing support, even scholarships. They understand that innocence, once trampled, is not something you can simply walk away from. We should learn from them.

Because until then, we will continue to fill our jails with the poor, the powerless, the forgotten. And when, finally, we set them free, we will pat ourselves on the back for having done justice—when all we’ve really done is wash our hands.

In the end, the question is not just who is guilty or innocent.

The question is: Who will pay the price for our indifference.