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Thursday, March 24, 2005
Female ward staff of Cebu City jail to get phone cards
* Phone card allowance good for six months
* Cebu City Hall will also give female inmates 20 sacks of rice for half a year
UNLIKE the male ward, the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center’s (BBRC) female dormitory will receive cell cards for its jail personnel and rice for the inmates.
As incentives for their “good performance,” the phone cards for the 16 female ward jailers and the sacks of rice for the less than 200 inmates will be good for six months.
The Cebu City Council approved last Monday the resolution of Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. asking for P148,000 to buy 120 sacks of rice and 96 cell cards worth P300 each.
The amount will be charged to the City’s Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) funds.
Pe said Mayor Tomas Osmeña approved the assistance in recognition of the female ward’s smooth operation, after its transfer to the new facility in Barangay Kalunasan in December last year.
The decision followed the Jan. 28 courtesy call of Senior Insp. Olga Soliman, the female ward’s jail warden.
“They asked for communication equipment, but because of budgetary constraints, instead of (two-way) radios, the mayor opted to give them cell cards and rice,” Pe said.
Jail woes
After the meeting, Osmeña asked Soliman to submit the female ward’s monthly rice consumption in January and February this year.
Based on her report, he concluded that the female ward’s inmates (an average of 160 persons) consume 40 sacks of rice a month.
The City, though, could only afford to subsidize half, hence the allocation of 20 sacks per month, or 120 sacks for six months.
But while the female ward inmates and jail guards were showered with benefits, their male ward counterparts will get nothing, indefinitely, from the City.
City Hall already withdrew its P1,000 incentive for each BBRC male ward guard and official, as well as food assistance to the inmates, following a spate of controversies in the facility.
Graft and corruption, continuous entry of illegal drugs believed to be with the jail personnel’s blessings, and preferential treatment for influential and moneyed inmates have become BBRC bywords.
And despite recommendations from the jail’s oversight committee, which was created to address the problems, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) still failed to make significant changes.
Pe said Osmeña’s decision to withdraw all assistance will not change if jail officials cannot show improvements in BBRC.
He added that for the female ward, the City is willing to give cell cards and sacks of rice for six more months, if the jail officials will continue doing well.(RHM)
(March 24, 2005 issue)
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