MANILA: Jerry Ballento entered the brutal Philippine prison system when he was just 17 after being accused of robbery and homicide. Eight years later , he is wasting away at the infamous Manila City Jail, as his seemingly endless trial continues.

It does not matter anymore. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I am paying for it," Ballento said as he fought for space to take an afternoon nap on the grimy floor of cell block number five. "I have long given up hope of ever walking free.

Ballento said that counting against him is the fact that he cannot afford a full-time lawyer and that his family appears to have deserted him-including an uncle who is a police general. He said he only had a hazy recollection of the crime for which he is accused. What he remembers is that he was drinking with friends on a hot summer night, and somehow ended up robbing a man.

Police say the victim later turned up dead on a garbage-littered Manila alley. At the time he was jailed, Ballento was not a gang member, knew little about the criminal underworld, and was not even "markado"-a prison term for men with gang tattoos.

He now has a thriving underground livelihood selling cigarettes to fellow inmates, whom he said had become his closest friends. At 25, Ballento looks about twice his age, his wiry frame bearing scars of untold prison fights. "You have to do everything to survive, including becoming a member of a criminal gang," Ballento told an AFP reporter who was allowed a rare trip inside the facility.

More than 200 are crammed inside cell block five, where the only source of ventilation is the barred window. A putrid smell wafts from a stagnant moat separating the block from a high wall, which stands opposite a warren of shanties.

From inside, one can see the city's overhead railway system and hear the bustle of city life. Originally built in the 1890s during Spanish colonial times and used to house prisoners of war during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the city jail and its facilities have been in a constant state of disrepair.

The 1.2-hectare (three-acre) facility has also become a symbol of the government's overburdened judicial system. Many inmates such as Ballento end up serving more time while on trial than the actual penalty for the crimes that they have been charged with.

About 95 percent of all inmates here are still undergoing trial for various crimes, and the majority of them have been inside for years living in squalid conditions. The jail was designed to hold a maximum of 1,000 inmates, but now houses more than four times that number, according to prison wardens.

Those whose families have money to spend can pay for a cot and tiny space separated from others by wooden walls. Most however are poor, and have to sleep on the hard, dirty floor with only sacks or newspapers to protect their backs.

The cell blocks resemble poorly lit dungeons. They turn into virtual ovens by day, and the blistering heat causes a steady outbreak of diseases, including tuberculosis, boils and other infections.

At cell block number five, a huge crucifix stands in the shadows so inmates can pray. But officials say chances of rehabilitation are nil, with the guard-to-inmate ratio running at one to 50.

We cannot implement inmate welfare and reform programmes," Rosendo Dial, director of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, which supervises city and municipal jails, told AFP.

We do provide them with basic health services, recreation, but only limited because it's too overcrowded. We also have an alternative learning system, but they won't be able to learn anything because how can you teach when its too crowded and noisy? They end up not learning anything.

Dial said he had launched a programme to trim the prison population that involved providing poor inmates with legal help to speed up their trials. A team of paralegal officers aided by law students have been asked to sift through a pile of cases gathering dust at a small room at the city jail, leading to some releases in the past months, he said.

But Dial admitted this did little to address the bigger issue. "We take in an average of three inmates a day-they can't afford bail, they don't have lawyers and public attorneys are also all stretched," he said.

And the fear is that overcrowded prisons are becoming breeding grounds for master criminals, instead of places for reform. "These inmates, they enter the prison system with only a bachelor's degree in crime. You go inside, and once you're out-if you're lucky-you already have a doctorate," Dial said. "You learn everything in jail." --- AFP ( Kuwait Times)