Dengarkan

It's known as torture roulette. Officers from the Philippine National Police Laguna Provincial Intelligence facility had a list of different torture positions or 'torture consequences' which were chosen by spinning a wheel, and then inflicted on inmates.

One of the punishments was a '30 second bat position' where the detainee would be hung upside down like a bat. Or a '20 second Manny Pacquiao' - named in reference to the Filipino professional boxer - meant a detainee would be punched non-stop for 20 seconds.

It's understood sometimes the police officers would drink while playing the game. It was only discovered when a number of inmates found the courage to complain and the Philippines' Commission on Human Rights conducted a routine visit to the facility.

The Commission's chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales says she was deeply disturbed by what they found.

“The Commission went there and started to investigate only to discover 44 incidents of torture that had taken place in that cell. So we started investigating and that's when we found out about this roulette. It's something that they play with, the police, it goes around and around and then it stops and then points at one of the labels there. So there are different ways of torture and to them this was really fun.”

According to the Commission the detainees, who were mostly arrested on drugs-related cases, complained of being tortured from the day they were arrested to force them to give information.

The discovery of the torture ring has prompted the Philippines' Commission on Human Rights, as well as Amnesty International, to call on the Chief Police Director General to fully prosecute all the officers involved.

While ten police officers have been relieved of their posts, Ms Rosales says more needs to be done.

“We intend to follow this through and monitor it until such time that the perpetrators are convicted. You know, I mean I'm sick and tired of this slow, slow pace of the justice system where it just takes too long a time before they are prosecuted and convicted. And you know that's already beyond that, but we have to monitor and still make a lot of noise if they don't move fast enough.”

Since Benigno Aquino became President in 2010 and reintroduced anti-torture laws, Ms Rosales says the now of torture cases has reduced.

However, she couldn't say if this game of torture was an isolated incident or more widely spread.

“We cannot say for certain that it does not take place in other prisons, until such time that we're able to see for sure. But you know, the good side of this is we get regular reports from provincial jails and also from custodial centres of the Philippine National Police.”

“They give us regular quarterly reports about the status of the inmates. So there's this thing that the CHR (Commission on Human Rights) does by way of regularly monitoring the activities and the performance of the jail system. But clandestine operations like we have just discovered is something that we will probably have to look into more closely and scrutinise. But to me the best way to resolve this crime is the certainty of arrest, prosecution and conviction of these elements of injustice, these law enforcers who violate the law.”

A spokesperson for the Philippines National police says several officers have been taken into custody and an investigation is under way.