MANILA, Philippines — Some 750 prisoners at the Negros Occidental District Jail (NODJ) have urged their lawmakers in the House of Representatives to help increase their food and medicine budget to counter the effects of inflation.
In a petition letter shared by rights group Karapatan, the inmates asked that their daily food and medicine budget be increased from P70 to P100 each, and P14 to P30 each, respectively.
“Our measly food and medicine budget has imposed additional difficulties [on] us and our families. This situation does not complement the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology’s safekeeping and development objectives,” they said in a letter.
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According to Karapatan, 700 inmates from the NODJ’s male dorm and 50 from the female dorm signed the letter addressed to Negros Occidental Representatives Gerardo Valmayor Jr., Alfredo Marañon III, Jose Francisco Benitez, Juliet Marie Ferrer, Emilio Bernardino Yulo, Mercedes Alvarez, Greg Gasataya and Joseph Stephen Paduano.
Many of their families, the prisoners said, had been forced to send them financial and material aid because of the meager food and medicine rations, which only worsened “the already precarious economic situation of our spouses and children.”
“Please do not forget us and our families as you collectively enact the General Appropriations Act of 2025,” they added.
CHR appeal
In August, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) also urged legislators to raise the budget allocations for food and medical allowances of inmates nationwide, saying “a humane approach to incarceration is crucial to genuine rehabilitation and social reintegration.”
“For 2024, only P70 is allocated per PDL (persons deprived of liberty) for daily meals, while the budget for medicine is capped at P15 per person,” the CHR said.