Negros PDLs appeal to lawmakers for food, medical budget hike

INQUIRER FILES

MANILA, Philippines — Persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in the Negros Occidental District Jail (NODJ) in Bago City urged lawmakers to raise their food and medical budget for 2025, human rights group Karapatan said on Monday.

In a petition letter dated September 19, around 700 inmates in the NODJ requested a P100 daily food allowance per person, along with a P30 daily budget for medicine.

The current daily meal allowance for each PDL stands at P70, while the daily medicine allowance is P14, the letter read.

The letter was addressed to Negrense lawmakers Gerardo Valmayor, Alfredo Marañon III, Stephen Joseph Paduano, Emilio Bernardino Yulo, Greg Gasataya, Juliet Marie Ferrer, and Mercedes Alvarez.

“Our daily food and medicine budget was last hiked by Congress in 2018. Without a doubt, this has been rendered inadequate now due to the sharp rise in the cost of essential food items and utilities in the country,” the PDLs wrote in their dialect.

“On one hand, it meant that our daily food ration had been affected in quantity and quality. And on the other hand, this has forced many families of PDLs — our very dependents before incarceration — to send us financial and material aid,” they added.

READ: CHR backs appeal for detainees’ food, medical allowance hike

Karapatan reported that the 700 PDLs housed in NODJ are part of over 4,000 inmates across the province.

Nationwide, nearly 180,000 PDLs are currently under the supervision of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, the human rights group added.