Women behind bars in Davao feel right at home
By Germelina Lacorte
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:09:00 03/30/2008
Filed Under: People, Prison
DAVAO CITY—Gina Talingting, 42, smiles as she breathes in the fresh air from the veranda of a newly built cottage in the compound of the city jail.
She and the other inmates—looking pretty in pink T-shirts—are getting ready to do some gardening. It is 3:30 p.m.
“Before, we were housed in congested windowless rooms. Now we have windows. We can look around and move around,” says Talingting.
Painted in pastel colors, the cottage-type duplexes do not look like a jail at all, but a village that reminds them of home.
Building a village inside a jail is one way of freeing inmates long before they are released, says Ferdinand Pontillo, jail chief inspector and officer in charge of the Davao City Jail.
The new 5,400-square-meter women’s facility is called Ray of Hope Village because it seeks to give hope to the women behind bars. What used to be an idle lot in the jail compound now features 10 duplexes (five have been finished), a multipurpose hall and, coming soon, a nursing room for mothers which will feature amenities for visiting children.
A better place
The new structures have windows—just like home, Pontillo says.
“It looks very nice; it doesn’t feel like a jail at all,” says Colin Davies, deputy representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), in a brief visit here early this month.
“When inmates feel comfortable, they feel at home and that makes them a lot happier,” he adds. “Once mothers feel happy, they will communicate this happiness to their children.”
He says a jail is supposed to be oppressive but the place does not look or feel oppressive at all. “By making this a better place, the women may become better people in society. When they meet their children, they’ll be a lot happier. Once they get out, I hope they will not come back here anymore.”
During a recent city peace and order meeting, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte promised to provide the new jail facility with a room for nursing mothers and amenities for children.
Unicef’s role
“Under the law, you cannot deprive children below 7 years old of their mothers so even if they are in prison, children should be allowed to visit them,” he says.
The idea for the P6-million facility started back in 1999 when concerns over minors in jails prompted Unicef to meet and consult with jail officials.
Unicef, which provides legal services to children in conflict with the law, has been advocating for a separate detention cell for minors. But it was only after Republic Act No. 9044, or the Juvenile Justice Act, that minors in jail were turned over to the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Now, that tiny seed of awareness for the rights of minors has been extended to include women.
The new women’s facility, which is run by a woman warden, houses over a hundred inmates.
The facility will be completed during the upcoming Kadayawan festivities in August, says Antonio Binatero, project director of Gawad Kalinga, known for its innovative housing projects for the poor in different parts of the country.
The women’s facility is the first jail facility built by Gawad Kalinga, says Binatero.
With the labor counterpart provided by inmates of the city jail, donations from civic groups and institutions such as NCCC Cares, Zonta Club, Davao City Water District and the city government itself made the building of the facility possible.
Ofelia Lapas, jail deputy for operations, recalls the old women’s facility: It not only lacked equipment, old policies did not allow mothers to nurse their babies in jail. Babies were sent home after they were born. [Conjugal visits are allowed.] To prevent accidents, children were not allowed to visit their mothers for long periods of time.
Ninety-five percent of women in jail are mothers, she adds.
Work, pray, talk, sing
Gina Talingting is grateful she and other inmates were transferred from the old facility to the new village. The duplexes serve as their sleeping quarters at night and work room in the daytime.
“It is where women work, pray, talk to each other, learn new things or sing,” she says.
Pontillo, Davao City Jail OIC, says the old place—a three-room structure at the back of the men’s quarters—was so congested, one room had as many as 67 inmates.
Talingting, who spent three years in the old facility, says that fights among inmates would erupt for the slightest reason.
2 persons to a bed
“It was so crowded, there was hardly any space to move around,” she says, adding that they used to sleep on rickety bunk beds, two persons in each bed. Some even slept on the floor. One toilet was shared by 37 inmates.
In the new facility, one duplex housed only 10 people, she says.
They wake up at 5:30 a.m., they do a roll call and then wash their clothes or take a bath. There is a faucet with running water at the back. Each cottage has a built-in toilet and bath.
It’s beginning to feel like home, Talingting says.
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