De Lima restores conjugal visit for Bilibid inmates on Valentine’s Day

By: Tetch Torres-Tupas - 10 years ago

New Bilibid Prison. INQUIRER file photo

MANILA, Philippines–Inmates at the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) will also have the chance to spend Valentine’s Day with their loved ones after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima allowed weekend overnight conjugal visit on Saturday.

”Pinayagan ko yung conjugal, stay-in for Valentine’s, bukas (I have allowed conjugal, stay-in visit for Valentine’s Day Saturday),” De Lima told reporters Friday.

Visitation privileges were restored recently at the state penitentiary after they were suspended following a grenade explosion last January 8 at the Maximum Security Compound.

De Lima said many of the inmates understood the decision to suspend the visitation privilege as the situation was volatile then.

Early this month, De Lima met with members of the Alliance of Inmate and Detainees-Dalaw (AID-Dalaw) who requested that they be allowed conjugal visit on Valentine’s day.

Henedina Javellana, president of AID-Dalaw, said that convicts, who had been deprived by the society of care and attention, are also capable of loving and being loved.

The Justice chief ordered the suspension of visiting rights after several raids yielded illegal drugs, firearms and contrabands. There was also a grenade explosion inside its Maximum Security Compound.

Several of the inmates who had been transferred to a special holding facility at the NBI filed petitions asking the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals to order their return to the NBP.