CHRISTMAS will be merry for the 2,100 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC), who will receive new sets of uniforms and pairs of shoes.
The Province had already delivered 24 rolls of orange cloth and 2,100 pairs of sneakers to the facility.
“We provided them with seven sewing machines because they will be the ones to sew the uniforms,” said Provincial General Services Office acting head and bids and awards committee vice chairman Bernard Calderon.
Calderon on Monday, Nov. 18, 2019, said the Capitol will pay for the labor cost of the group of inmates that will be sewing the uniforms.
The Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office, though, has yet to determine how much it will pay those tasked to make the uniforms.
“They started making the uniforms on Nov. 3. Each inmate will receive a uniform set composed of a pair of jogging pants and a shirt and a pair of shoes. These will all be distributed on or before Dec. 15, 2019,” Calderon said in Cebuano.
The Province spent around P500,000 for the yards of cloth and pairs of shoes for the inmates.
In an earlier interview, Calderon said the shoes cost a total of P400,000, with each pair amounting to P165.
The rolls of cloth, on the other hand, were purchased through cash-on-delivery scheme.
In August 2019, a month after assuming office, Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia visited the facility to assess its condition.
During her visit, Garcia promised the inmates that they would receive new uniforms as part of her administration’s thrust to overhaul the CPDRC.
Aside from the rehabilitation of inmates, the Capitol is also working on decongesting and reviewing and improving the facility’s security system, among others.
Opened in 2004 during Garcia’s earlier stint as governor, the CPDRC, which was built for some 1,600 detainees, is now home to at least 2,100 inmates.
But since August 2018, the facility has stopped admitting new inmates until it can fully address the congestion problem. / RTF