prison4 — The basics, from the detainees’ kitchen (PDI Photo/Kimberly dela Cruz)

There’s a tall, secured gate that separates them from the rest. They all wear yellow shirts and jeans that tell outsiders that they’re not your usual kaffe klatsch group. The uniform also helps the guards pick them out in case they try to blend in with the slew of visitors in the compound.

It’s easy to judge these women as deserving of their detention, their fate a just retribution for their crimes. But the 500 or so detainees in Quezon City’s Female Dormitory in Kamuning, Quezon City are more than just docketed cases.

They’re actually mothers, sisters, daughters and grandmas, people who have families out there whom they miss, and who might also be missing them. They may be physically and temporarily cut off from loved ones, but these women have never wavered in providing them as much care as their restricted situation allows.

A case in point is food.

Despite their scant P50 daily food allowance, these women have managed to feed their families even from behind bars.

The P50 food budget allotted each inmate by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) is broken down into P10 for breakfast, P20 for lunch and P20 for dinner.

While jail chief inspector and food service manager Elena Rocamora continues to lobby Congress for increased food subsidy, she also makes sure that the measly food allowance is maximized and used to serve nutritious and tasty food.

The weekly menu (see sidebar) changes every month and is approved by the BJMP-NCR’s National Food Service Council, according to Rocamora. A typical meal always has vegetables, a cup of rice and either chicken or fish. If there’s excess rice, inmates can ask for more. Random jail inspection by the Internal Audit section makes sure that the typical menu is served. There are times when inmates would request for a change in menu, but that is subject to the jail council’s approval.

Sometimes, vegetables confiscated from illegal vendors are added to the day’s menu, Rocamora adds.

Despite the limited budget, the inmates’ diet is regularly checked by a nutritionist who also oversees the women’s dietary restrictions and medications. For Muslims, eggs are served, instead of longganisa (native sausages).

Inmates are asked to eat their three meals within the allotted time, although they are allowed to snack between meals. With BJMP approval, goodies from families and visitors may be stored in the prison kitchen’s refrigerator.

Jail policy prohibits wine, liquor and cigarettes, and packages brought in by visitors are strictly checked to prevent the switching of soda bottles with beer, an old modus since discovered and discouraged.

She likes the food served them, says Darwisa Hadjula, 40, the female dorm’s Muslim community head. The food may not be of gourmet or even fast food standard, but the free food is a blessing, Hadjula adds. To eat three regular meals is something that some detainees do not enjoy outside of jail.

On this Thursday morning, four inmates are preparing a meal in the kitchen. In a few minutes they would be serving the chicken adobo for lunch.

The four food service assistants are accredited and given sanitary permits by the Quezon City health department.

Although they do not have previous training or even some background in cooking, the four were chosen and trained by outgoing detainees. They wear an ID identifying them as official cooks. The IDs also show their sanitary permit and the health department accreditation.

Among the food assistants is Josephine Sarmiento, 51, who wakes up around 1 a.m. every day to prepare and serve breakfast until 7 a.m. With her that day is Sheridan Mahinay, 48, and Mary Ann Entico, 26, who is busy packing rice in a plastic bag.

The three were chosen to work as prison cooks based on a few unwritten requirements: being well-behaved and patient. War freaks need not apply. Well, after all, ordinary kitchen tools like knives and forks can easily morph into deadly weapons in the hands of the criminally-inclined.

After cooking eight cauldrons of rice and the main dish for that meal, the food assistants are allowed a two-hour rest.

Meanwhile, the BJMP staff does a taste test to ensure the inmates’ security. In a few moments, the women fall in line with their trays and wait for the cook to scoop and dump the food on their plates.

At 9 a.m., the food assistants start preparing lunch, which will be served until 1 p.m. Dinner preparations start at 4 p.m. and is served until 8 p.m.

By 9, the inmates take to their beds.

“That’s their routine, their life here,” says Rocamora.

Mahinay, who got involved in a drug-related case, says she immediately accepted the offer to be a food assistant to break the monotony of life inside a cell. She’s been an inmate for five years now and was first assigned to work in the kitchen in 2008.

“If I had not been chosen, I’d just be lying around in my cell and waiting for mealtimes,” she says. She only learned to cook in jail, she adds, but already her specialties are arroz caldo and adobo.

A cook receives P3,000 monthly, enough to cover some of her expenses like toiletries as well as food available in the canteen run by the BJMP staff.

Not surprisingly, the money that the cooks earn immediately find its way to relatives outside jail.

The other prison freebies and donations make it possible for inmates to continue being the main breadwinners of their families.

Christmas is a especially happy season, with several charity groups and outreach service providers donating food and stuff to the jail facility. Caritas Manila, for one, donated several kilos of uncooked hotdogs which the inmates were allowed to farm out to their families. There were instances, too, when local politicians, among them Mayor Herbert Bautista of Quezon City, would donate big-ticket food items, like 10 litson (roasted pigs) to the inmates. More stuff for the families outside their cell, the women say.

Aside from such gratuities, being kept busy is something that some inmates look forward to.

“I like it when I’m busy. It’s better than staying in the cell, and just thinking. It will drive me crazy,” says Hadjula who adds that there was a time when she completely forgot to eat lunch because of some jail activities.

prison food — photo by Kimberly dela Cruz

Says Rocamora of her advice to the women: “You cannot do anything anymore. Since you’re already here, just think positive.”

The chief warden says idleness breeds misbehavior and strife so she is at peace when the inmates are preoccupied instead of feeling depressed.

The activities seem to work. Recently, the QC female dormitory bagged an award from the Social Security System for being the first jail in the country that enlisted its inmates in the AlkanSSSya Program.

The QC female dorm was also recognized as the Best Female City Jail of the Year in NCR, with Rocamora being named the Best Female Warden of the Year.

Under the AlkanSSSya Program, participating inmates put part of their prison earnings in a coin bank that has a P312 maximum capacity. The amount is enough for an SSS coverage that would entitle the women to social security benefits.

Rocamora got the idea from a city hall program, but initially, it was greeted with skepticism by SSS personnel. Where would their money come from?, one SSS staff asked her.

“From our livelihood programs,” the warden replied.

“We have a lot of livelihood programs, and I’m tasked to sell them to private institutions,” she adds proudly.

Indeed, just outside the warden’s office is an area, where the inmates produce candles, bags, soap and other handicrafts. There’s another room for daily religious gathering led by members of the Iglesia ni Cristo, El Shaddai, renewed Christian groups, etc. Another program has teachers funded by the government coming to jail to give inmates a chance to finish their elementary or high school studies.

The women are also trained to provide massage services, pedicure and manicure, and laundry services so they can have extra income for their family.

Magdalena Bruno, 57, has been in jail for 10-1/2 years now for an estafa (embezzlement) case. Now, she manages the jail’s craftmaking service. Around 200 employees turn beads into handicrafts and lanterns which are sold in bazaars. They also accept wholesale orders for key chains and bags. The bags cost from P100 to P700, while the lanterns are priced at P120.

Each prisoner, says Bruno, earns an average of P100 a week. Those who make key chains and bags out of beads, earn P300 weekly.

Rocamora, who has been working here for 18 years now, sees the livelihood programs as a way to give hope to the inmates.

“When they get here, they keep crying and feel both lonely and fearful. But we are here not to punish them, but to be part of their rehabilitation program.”

Indeed, the program has made it possible for the detainees’ children to come and visit them every Sunday, and get their week’s allowance for school.

sayote kitchen work — photo by Kimberly dela Cruz

But despite the free food, the cooking skills learned, the livelihood training, the weekly earnings, the SSS coverage and the unbroken family ties, Rocamora believes that all inmates would still choose to be free.

“Mga nanay yan eh! (They are mothers after all!)” she says. •

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So What’s Cooking?

Menu for October 2013

Quezon City Female Dormitory

Camp Tomas B. Karingal, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City

Monday

Breakfast: Macaroni with Chicken and Bread

Lunch: Chicken Afritada with Carrots and Potato

Dinner: Sotanghon with Chicken

Tuesday

Breakfast: Nilagang Saba and Bread
Lunch: Pinakbet