RESPONDING TO THE COMMUNITY-BASED CORRECTION SYSTEMFOR TREATMENT OF CRIMINAL OFFENDERS THROUGH
MULTI-AGENCY COOPERATION
Benjamin C. Cutay, Jr.＊I. LEGAL BASES AND OVERVIEW OF THE COMMUNITY-BASED TREATMENTOF OFFENDERS AND PREVENTION OF RECIDIVISM
The Philippines engages in crime prevention and promotes the treatment and rehabilitation of criminal
offenders. It has laws that support saving and redeeming valuable human resources and programmes andservices that enhance and develop their capacities to become responsible, productive and law-abiding
members of society.
The Probation Administration was created by virtue of Presidential Decree No. 968, “The Probation
Law of 1976”, to administer the probation system. Under Executive Order No. 292, “The AdministrativeCode of 1987”, which was promulgated on November 23, 1989, the Probation Administration was renamed
as the “Parole and Probation Administration” and given the added function of supervising prisoners who,
after serving part of their sentence in jails, are released on conditions of parole.
Effective August 17, 2005, by virtue of a Memorandum of Agreement with the Dangerous Drugs Board,
the Administration also performs the function of investigating and supervising first-time minor drug
offenders pursuant to Republic Act No. 9165.
The PPA in its vision statement declares that it is a model component of the Philippine Correctional
System that shall enhance the quality of life of its clients through multi-disciplinary programmes andresources, an efficient organization, and a highly professional and committed workforce in order to promotesocial justice and development. Its mission is to rehabilitate probationers, parolees and pardonees andpromote their development as persons by utilizing innovative interventions and techniques which respect
the dignity of man and recognize his divine destiny.
The 1987 Philippine Constitution provides that “the State promotes a just and dynamic social order thatwill ensure the prosperity and independence of the nation and free from poverty through policies thatprovide adequate services, promote employment, rising standard of living, and an improved quality of life
for all.”
It is evident that the Philippines is a people-centered country, whose ultimate goal is the welfare of its
citizenry. It is a member country of the United Nations and signatory to many international treaties andcovenants that respect human rights and promote total human development.
In its continuing endeavours, it seeks to address poverty, crime, corruption, violence and terrorism andmany societal issues that obstruct development of human beings. It has introduced numerous development
programmes and basic services to address basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education and even
vocational skills that would generate employment to improve income of individuals and families and, contribute to the country’s gross national product (GDP), as well.
In the 1970s, President Ferdinand E. Marcos introduced the concept of “Bagong Lipunan” or the “NewSociety” where socio-economic development programmes were extended to the people to eradicate povertyand diminish unemployment and social unrest in the country.
During the time of President Fidel V. Ramos from 1992-1998, the Social Reform Agenda (SRA) was imAssistant Ragional Director, Parole and Probation Administration, Region XI, Department of Justice, Philippines.

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plemented through the Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (CIDSS) Project, for thepurpose of addressing the minimum basic needs that consist of survival, security and enabling needs. Its
ultimate goal was to reduce poverty incidence and attain an improved quality of life (IQL) among theproject beneficiaries. It prioritized poor provinces and municipalities and targeted the poorest of the poorfamilies to address their survival, security, health and enabling needs. The Department of Social Welfareand Development (DSWD) was the lead agency, and other departments of the government served as line
agencies supporting the implementation of the whole project. It was finally institutionalized throughRepublic Act No. 8425, dated June 3, 1998.
The Parole and Probation Administration (PPA), since the inception of its community-based correction
system in 1976, has developed multiple approaches to crime prevention and treatment of criminal offenders.
Various community-based development interventions were made with involvement of community resources.

II. THE PAROLE AND PROBATION ADMINISTRATION (PPA)’S MULTI-AGENCY
COOPERATION EXPERIENCEOver the years, the PPA has sought to give meaning to its mission statement by designing andexecuting viable and effective rehabilitation programmes responsive to the needs of its clients. It believes
that individuals, particularly criminal offenders, will fail to achieve a great amount of personal change if
the economic and social structures of the family and community are weak or unavailable. If they are unemployed and have nowhere to stay, the tendency of falling back into old habits and criminality is possible.
A supporting social and economic environment that fully embraces them is needed so that they can live
normal lives. Thus, the PPA aims at providing its clients access to employment by giving them skills andlivelihood training programmes.
Probation and parole officers and support staff are provided with training courses to develop their professional skills and inculcate positive attitudes towards probation and parole work so that they have theability to be directly involved in the treatment and rehabilitation of clients. The PPA fosters institutional
partnership with international agencies like Daytop International in the United States, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Asia and the Far East Institute (UNAFEI) toprovide training courses for its probation and parole officers on Therapeutic Community (TC) Modality andapproaches and strategies to crime prevention and treatment of criminal offenders, respectively, with themaximum involvement and participation of communities.
The PPA forges and maintains networking and convergence with local community resources involvedin the delivery of social services. To mention a few: Local Government Units (LGUs), the Department ofSocial Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Education (DepEd), the Department of Health(DOH), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Technical Education andSkills Development Authority (TESDA) and some educational institutions. The PPA involves local people
as volunteer probation aides (VPAs), to serve as community partners of probation and parole officers in thesupervision and rehabilitation of its clients, and develops job referral systems among public and private employment agencies and individuals to address joblessness among clients and prevent recidivism.

III. METHODS OF MULTI-AGENCY COOPERATIONThe PPA adheres to the principle of interdependence through institutional convergence to expedite
delivery of services needed by its clients. It believes that for the basic human organization to survive it has
to connect with other social systems in the community and work with them collectively and mutually help
each other. For several years, the world has gone into globalization and undertaken measures to promote
unity and cooperation among nations to respond to global issues and concerns such as poverty, terrorism,crimes, gender inequality, and climate change, among others. The PPA works in the local and national
community by involving agencies and community resources to treat offenders by improving their lives.
Below is a profile of multi-agency cooperation as an approach to community-based treatment ofoffenders used by the PPA:

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162ND INTERNATIONAL SENIOR SEMINARPARTICIPANTS’ PAPERSAGENCIES/INSTITUTIONSPROGRAMMES AND SERVICES

Department of Social Welfare and Development

Foodstuff, skills training, livelihood and cash assistance, familyplanning, population control methods,

Department of Education

Alternative learning system, scholarship grants

Department of Health

Medical, dental and clinical services, training on aftercare services

Department of Environment and NaturalResources

Seedlings, trainings and seminars on conservation of naturalresources

Department of Trade and Industry

Skills training, entrepreneurial seminars

Department of Labor and Employment

Training kits, job placement

Department of Agriculture

Trainings and seminars on farming & construction of training facilities, planting materials

Department of Interior and Local Gov- Seminars and trainings on fire prevention, and other crime,
ernment
man-made disaster initiatives
Local Government Units (barangay,municipal, city and provincial levels)

Lot for the convergence/skills training center, funding assistance,
foodstuff, support/office personnel, seedlings, fuel, honoraria forprobation officers, office supplies, office equipment, seminars on
Gender and Development (GAD) matters,

Technical Education and Skills Develop- Skills and livelihood trainings & scholarship grants
ment Authority
Dangerous Drugs Board

Drug-test kits, seminars on aftercare services, etc.

Religious Groups

Spiritual formation, training venue and seminars, counselling services
and faith-based sessions.

IV. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED AND MEASURES ADOPTED IN MULTI-AGENCY
COOPERATIONThe PPA’s experience in multi-agency cooperation provides learning opportunities for probation workers
and other community resources. It strengthens the concept of interdependence among community
resources/agency for collective efforts in addressing the needs of offenders. In the multi-agency cooperation approach, each community resource or agency is part of the whole system and has a great and significant role to make or unmake the development goals and processes.
A piecemeal approach by service agencies blocks holistic and integrated development. Some service
agencies or community resources have limited knowledge of cooperative development approaches intreating criminal offenders. Thus, what happened was that they worked based on their available resources
and focused on their assigned clients. They failed to consider other development systems in the community
where they could access and share resources for maximum development of clients. Lack of initiative ofsome community resources to promote crime prevention and treatment of offenders is another one. As aconsequence, building initiatives for collective action towards reforming criminal offenders are underestimated and, at the very least, the resources are underused for the purposes they were allocated.
Through its probation workers the PPA established an effective collaboration with government service
agencies/community resources through a development interface or convergence of various services. It
ensures that clients are able to get the services and programmes they need from other agencies. Probation
officers participate in the budget planning session to receive funding from their respective local government units and involve themselves in most important and major initiated activities of the government
service agencies/community resources to maintain effective networking and alliances.

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V. CHALLENGES FACING MULTI-AGENCY COOPERATION
There is a need to shift from an individualistic approach to multi-agency cooperation through institutional convergence among community resources and service agencies. The principle of interdependence
through collective action should be upheld and given paramount consideration. Correction or probation
workers who belong to the profession of transforming and developing the capacities of offenders should bereoriented on development concepts and approaches, e.g., multi-agency cooperation, to enable them tobecome more effective implementers of the community-based corrections system.
The PPA, as a lead agency in the prevention of crime and treatment of offenders, should strongly
develop and exercise teamwork not only among its workers in the probation system but, with and amongcommunity resources. The multi-agency approach is viable only if all agencies act as team players andbelieve that community resources are potent agents to reform and develop human beings, particularly
criminal offenders.
The initiative of building and maintaining a consistent and well-organized institutional partnershipamong agencies and entities in the government and individuals in the community requires great determination and serious commitment. A probation officer or any correction worker should have enoughknowledge about the mandate of each agency to unite people and agencies, and should know how to use its
resources for the benefit of offenders. Social interactions through planning, focus-group discussions, andproper implementation of the project should be effectively carried out. Periodic monitoring and evaluationof programmes and projects should be conducted, to ensure that what has been planned out is well
executed.
Initially, more capacity-building activities should be conducted to strengthen the capacities of correction/probation workers and service agencies or community resources and promote a well-organized partnership and alliances among those directly involved in the delivery of basic services to achieve an effective
community-based corrections system.

VI. REFERENCES
1. Parole and Probation Administration. (1999). PPA Service Manual, Manila.
2. Parole and Probation Administration. (2009). Info-kit, Manila: PPA.
3. Presidential Decree No. 968, as amended.
4. Republic Act No.8425 an Act institutionalizing the social reform and poverty alleviation program,creating for the purpose the national anti-poverty commission, defining its powers and functions, andfor other purposes
5. The Administrative Code of 1987
6. The 1987 Philippine Constitution
7. www.probation.gov.ph118