Monday, August 04, 2008 Changing inmates’ view on life, lifestyles among BJMP’s goals By Katrina A. Balmaceda Sun.Star Correspondent
IT MAY still be the first week of August, but Cebu City Jail inmate Eric Tolero is already creating his second Christmas lantern.
New to the city jail, 41-year-old Tolero was accused of stealing a cellphone and possessing illegal drugs a few months ago. As he awaits trial on his case, he makes Christmas lanterns in jail in order to earn some money.
Lantern-crafting, with foil paper and barbecue sticks as main materials, is the only semblance of his life out of bars since he used to craft and sell lanterns for a living.
In support of jail decongestion, through the speedy disposition of cases, judges and lawyers visited inmates like Tolero at the city jail last Friday.
However, Chief Supt. Doris Dorigo of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) 7 knows this is a long-term goal, so she is focusing on improving the prisoners’ lifestyles while they are behind bars.
While admitting there is a shortage of BJMP officers, Dorigo said she plans to have all jail personnel undertake a refresher course.
This course, she said, will “help inmates change their way of looking at life.”
BJMP 7 has only one paralegal officer per jail facility, she said.
The agency also has 534 personnel, which is less than half of the ideal workforce of 1,200.
This is why she plans to link with nongovernment organizations, local government units (LGU) and the academe to give legal assistance to inmates.
The University of Cebu (UC) Legal Aid Office has also secured permission from the Supreme Court to offer free assistance to prisoners whose cases cannot be handled by the Public Attorney’s Office due to a lack of lawyers.
“This will also prevent the victimization (of prisoners),” Dorigo said.
Human rights groups often visit the jail, Cebu City Jail Warden Supt. Efren Nemeño told Sun.Star Cebu.
“In a jail like this, impossible nga di ma-report ang maltreatment (it’s impossible for maltreatment of prisoners to go unreported),” Nemeño said, adding that the prisoners’ families report whatever they could.
He claimed that during his term as jail warden, there has been no complaint of maltreatment.
Three years ago, before Nemeño’s term, a guard was accused of mauling to death a prisoner who complained of severe stomach pain.
Conditions
A murder charge was filed against jail officer Randy Absalon only this year.
However, Assistant State Prosecutor Graeme Elmido, who was assigned to the case, said that after a consultation with the Committee on Human Rights, the case was provisionally dismissed due to the lack of witnesses.
Nemeño also admitted that decongestion and an idle lifestyle often bring about skin and respiratory diseases among prisoners.
In many cells, 30 prisoners are crammed into a space supposedly for 10 people. Blankets fill the floors; bags line the walls. There is one altar, one electric fan, one comfort room and one bathroom for all the occupants of each cell.
Nemeño said that sports and religious activities are the only diversions in prison life.
Occupants of one cell, however, are lucky enough to have a television set and DVD player donated by an inmate’s family. In other cells, prisoners have learned to make miniature plants out of plastic softdrink bottles.
During a tour of the jail last Friday, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judges Macaundas Hadjirasul and Estela Cinco lingered among the inmates crafting the miniature plants.
Hadjirasul ended up buying two plastic plants, one with plastic yellow rose petals and another one with pink petals. He gave one of the plants to Cinco.
RTC Executive Judge Fortunato de Gracia Jr. commended the inmates’ craft-making to assuage idleness, saying that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
Apart from helping inmates at the city jail, BJMP 7’s Dorigo said she will also be signing a memorandum of agreement with a Japanese company this month to allow 60 female inmates of the Lapu-Lapu City detention facility to do some work.
