There are now a number of AlDub political prisoners here at Camp Bagong Diwa. Among them are the AlDub couples, Ruben Saluta / Precy Estrada, Alex Birondo / Winona Oñate, and Adel Silva / Sharon Cabusao, who have been among those foully transferred last September and October from Philippine National Police detention in Camp Crame to Bureau of Jail Management and Penology detention here in Camp Bagong Diwa. All the other male and female political prisoners, separated by gender here at Camp Bagong Diwa, are actually also AlDub political prisoners — as they have been confined in order to be separated from the mass of the people, especially the oppressed and exploited, to whom they have devoted to the fullest their hearts, their work and the whole of their lives.
There are now a number of AlDub political prisoners here at Camp Bagong Diwa. Among them are the AlDub couples, Ruben Saluta / Precy Estrada, Alex Birondo / Winona Oñate, and Adel Silva / Sharon Cabusao, who have been among those foully transferred last September and October from Philippine National Police detention in Camp Crame to Bureau of Jail Management and Penology detention here in Camp Bagong Diwa. All the other male and female political prisoners, separated by gender here at Camp Bagong Diwa, are actually also AlDub political prisoners — as they have been confined in order to be separated from the mass of the people, especially the oppressed and exploited, to whom they have devoted to the fullest their hearts, their work and the whole of their lives.
In their Camp Crame detention, even if they were incarcerated in different cells, political prisoner couples still had the opportunity of being together quite often during daytime, and also enjoyed the opportunity of occasionally (weekly) being officially allowed their conjugal rights. Since their transfer here to Camp Bagong Diwa last September and October, such rights and opportunities have been totally deprived of them. This, because, they are now detained in separate jails here at Camp Bagong Diwa, with male political prisoners confined at the Special Intensive Care Area Jail, and female political prisoners confined at the Female Dormitory – Taguig City Jail.
Despite the new barrier of distance and walls, however, the now cruelly separately confined political prisoner couples have still been able to create a new way of communicating with each other across the quarter-of-a-kilometer distance between their separate jails. This, aside from occasionally being able to exchange love letters, with their relatives and other common visitors providing them free inter-jail mail courier service.
Those "big heart" and other hand-language messages are actually enjoyed not only by the AlDub couples, but also by all the other political prisoners at the Taguig City Jail and the Special Intensive Care Area Jail. These other political prisoners also fondly send AlDub messages to those at other side.
A few days ago, however, GI sheets were mounted to fence off the rooftop of the Taguig City Jail, so that the AlDub political prisoners in the two jails can no longer view each other and send hand-language messages to each other in the open as freely as before. The physically separated political prisoners have, however, been managing to once in a while still be able to catch glimpses from each other through a gap in the fence, and still be able to send — even if now rarer — "big heart" and other hand-language messages to each other, AlDub-style. Creating ways of maintaining ties and communicating with each other, even via AlDub-style, depicts how political prisoners will not let their ranks, their relations, their rights, and their determined fight for social advocacies and the interest of the mass of exploited and oppressed mass of the people — they have been put in jail for — be defeated.
Alan Jazmines
National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant detained at the Special Intensive Care Area Jail, Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City | December 2, 2015