Loida Magpatoc, one of the 15 detained peace consultants of the National Democratic Front, ignored the punishment meted out against her by the Disciplinary Board of the Taguig City Jail-Female Dorm, Camp Bagong Diwa. Magpatoc was punished because of the complaints she raised on the condition of prisoners at the female dorm, deemed by the Board as violation of the BJMP manual.
Loida Magpatoc, one of the 15 detained peace consultants of the National Democratic Front, ignored the punishment meted out against her by the Disciplinary Board of the Taguig City Jail-Female Dorm, Camp Bagong Diwa. Magpatoc was punished because of the complaints she raised on the condition of prisoners at the female dorm, deemed by the Board as violation of the BJMP manual.
Magpatoc, in a statement, said the measure aims to silence the inmates and send the message ‘bawal ang magreklamo’ (you should not complain). Magpatoc caught the ire of the BJMP authorities when she submitted a letter of complaint to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and some members of the Senate. In her letter dated June 1, she cited, among others, the:
- Lack of medical facilities and neglect of inmates who are sick. She cited the death of two inmates, one of them Leticia Socito who suffered from hypertension but was only brought to the hospital when she fell into coma.
- Lack of water supply in the female dorm. The female prisoners rely on the water supplied from the Male dorm through a garden hose.
- Overpricing of materials used to produce crafts that are sold by the detainees and other inmates. The BJMP also takes 30% from the sales of these products.
The Disciplinary Board, headed by Deputy Warden Teresa Minda Cabaniero, ordered Magpatoc to clean the toilets of the BJMP employees and personnel, including the kitchen at the rooftop of the female dorm. The BJMP guards earlier confiscated Magpatoc’s first letter of complaint.
At the male dorm of the Special Intensive Care Area (SICA), NDFP consultants and other political detainees also protested the “arbitrary confiscations, theft and wastage of essential necessities, livelihood handicraft products and valuable items of detainees” committed by the BJMP-NHQ forces during its ‘greyhound’ operations on June 12.
The ‘greyhound operations’ was supposedly done to “search for and confiscate illegal drugs, weapons and similar contrabands” but the guards instead confiscated a kerosene stove and a bottle of Thyroid Gland Care capsules used as maintenance medicine of political detainee Fidel Holanda. Later, one of the guards dumped the medicine bottle onto Holanda’s tarima (cot), which rolled off the floor and its contents poured out from the bottle into the dirty floor. It was the second time the BJMP guards confiscated the kerosene stove used by the political detainees.
The signed letter by the NDFP consultants Alan Jazmines, Emeterio Antalan, Tirso Alcantara, Leopoldo Caloza and other political detainees said the BJMP-NHQ concentrated on “non-contraband, harmless and essentially needed items of detainees, as kerosene stoves, livelihood handicraft production raw materials and finished products, educational and entertainment CDs/DVDs, lighters, sewing needles, ballpens, nailcutters, tweezers, toothbrushes, and disposable shavers.” These items are sold in the cooperative store run by BJMP employees.
On May 1, the BJMP guards also confiscated the transistor radios of another NDFP consultant Emeterio Antalan and an inmate. The said transistor radios are still in the possession of jail authorities.
Both the political detainees at the SICA and at the Taguig City Jail-female dorm complained of the guards’ ‘display of arrogance’. The political detainees have yet to receive response from the authorities on the said complaints.