My friend Carol had been nagging me to get involved in the prison outreach program of our church’s social service ministry. After running out of convenient excuses, I finally relented. Something about Carol’s persistence broke through my reservations. A petite woman with curly hair and thick glasses, she had an air of quiet intensity and amazing reserves of energy. So one Saturday morning, I found myself a reluctant visitor of the National Bilibid Prisons, the most notorious slammer in Manila.
On the way, I felt a mixed sense of curiosity and anxiety at the thought of actually being inside Bilibid, reputedly the dumping ground of society’s most dangerous and hardened criminals. But my sense of adventure took over. With a deep breath and a silent prayer, I tried to shake off my fear. The team leader informed our group about the day’s agenda. We would visit the maximum security area, attend Mass with the prisoners, and serve lunch to the patients in the prison hospital’s psychiatric ward.
Despite my efforts to be calm, I couldn’t help worrying. Would I have close encounters with burly, surly scar-faced men decorated with tattoos on their rugged, muscular bodies? Or with the likes of the psycho character played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs?
The Essay on Understanding State and Federal Prisons
... awaits criminals is incarceration where they are kept in prisons. Prisons are institutions designed to securely accommodate persons who are ... differences that are observed between state and federal prisons. State prisons have little or no enormous budget to expand ... And also because of this advantage over state prisons, federal prison administration and management get more training and workshops ...
As the bus wove its way through the Saturday morning traffic, I retreated into silence. We reached our destination soon enough, and the imposing iron gates of Bilibid loomed before us. A lady guard frisked us and inspected our things before letting us through several gates that led to the maximum-security area. The heavy clang of the last gate as it was bolted behind us shocked me momentarily. I felt trapped, shut off from the free world only a few meters away.
Martin, a young, pleasant full-time volunteer at the prison ministry, briefed us. “Always stick together. Don’t give money or material goods to the inmates,” he warned. As if to answer the unspoken questions on my mind, a poster on the chaplain’s office wall reassuringly proclaimed in bold letters, “PRISON IS PEOPLE.”
Off we went to the outhouse kitchen to cook lunch. We were not allowed entry into the jail buildings, which looked more like soldiers’ barracks from the outside. Since this was the maximum-security section, I had expected the prisoners to be locked in their cells and clad in the regulation orange outfit. Well, this was another eye-opener for me. I suppose rules were relaxed for those on good behavior and their status upgraded to medium security. A number of them roamed freely on the grounds fenced off by barbed wire. They wore T-shirts and shorts or denim jeans. As we prepared the food, some inmates helped us and shared their case histories.
One was an ex-noncommissioned officer of the Philippine Constabulary who shot to death five people after a heated argument. “I was hot-tempered and trigger-happy,” he admitted. It was during the martial law years, when some military men got drunk with power, abusing their authority over civilian rule. As he recounted his story, I listened intently, scanning his face for signs of remorse, but he told the events matter-of-factly. I suppose all the emotion had been drained from him with countless repetition of the same story to anyone who cared to listen. Who knows, maybe he had sought forgiveness and forgiven himself, and his spirit was now free.
My preconceived notions vanished after this face-to-face interaction with the inmates. They were clean-cut, gentlemanly, even friendly and at ease. I noted with amusement that they managed to retain their sense of humor, entertaining our group with their repertoire of prison jokes. They look and act just like regular guys, I thought. Were these the tough convicts who committed rape or murder in cold blood?
The Essay on Red Mans Speech Man Time People
RED MAN'S SPEECHToday's hot and sunny Red Man, perhaps it's the huge mass of people but I'm really getting hot in this tinny room for sure, the walls are shattered, the floor is ruined, those punks are cutting out the breeze I need! . God damn it! I'm sweating like a pig on a day-spa but it doesn't matter, it " ll worth it. Should I pull the trigger now? No, not yet. I'll wait, after all, I've ...
By midday, we were done with cooking in time for the Mass in the prison chapel. The men participated in the service so enthusiastically, and the prison choir sang so heartily, that I felt it was indeed a Eucharistic celebration; in fact, one of the best ones I’ve ever attended. At the Invitation to Peace, the guys went around and shook hands with everybody, their faces lighting up with broad smiles. They seemed at peace with God, with the world and with themselves. Perhaps in the long days of their physical incarceration, they had battled with their inner demons and admitted to their crime.
After Mass, we served lunch to the psychiatric patients. Several were moaning; others talking to themselves. The violent ones were restrained in straitjackets. Some of the men waiting in line were stooped and shuffled like old men. They seemed so fragile, broken down in spirit, their weary eyes dimmed with resignation, loneliness or pain. It was an imprisonment of body and soul.
The other patients were either too weak or maybe didn’t care to get up and have their lunch. Many didn’t even have plates; they used whatever was handy, like a lid of an old cookie can. A feeble elderly man’s hands trembled so much that he could barely hold up a chipped plastic mug that served as his bowl. The pitiful sight was too much for the young student in our group. As she ladled out the food with one hand, she brushed her tears aside with the other. A senior volunteer took over and consoled her, “It’s okay.”
One hospital aide explained to us, “They end up in this ward because they couldn’t cope with the harsh conditions of prison life and separation from their families. Some are innocent of the crime of which they were convicted.” It was Lady Justice held in captivity.
I also learned that a number of prisoners have done their time and should have been released a long time ago, but pleaded to stay. They had nowhere else to go, or couldn’t face the cold world outside. They felt secure within the prison walls, their home for many years. It was an imprisonment by choice.
The Essay on Rubin Hurricane Carter Prison Man Murder
The statement made by Rubin "Hurricane " Carter, "Hate got me into this place, love got me out." The statement means that throughout his term in prison he changed as a person and also a human being. As he arrived in prison he was what you call a bad ass and a rebel. I remember distinctly a scene involving Carter and the prison Warden. The Warden told Carter to put on the standard uniform for him ...
Our group had a meeting-cum-sharing afterwards, as we ate lunch in the living quarters of the chaplain and his assistant. Aida, one of the oldest members, confided that a friend challenged her, “So, you’re in the prison ministry. Well and good. But how about the prisoners’ victims and their families? Have you tried to help them, too?”
My day in Bilibid proved a reality check for me. Criminal offenders versus law-abiders, “them” against “us?” Not everyone behind bars is guilty, not everyone outside is innocent. Those in jail are the ones who have been caught.
Imprisonment can take other guises as well, not physically manifest, yet no less real. Are we enclosed in our own little world, or locked up in an ivory tower? Does prejudice or superiority prevent us from reaching out to others? We may be enslaved by vice or addiction, in the tight grip of despair, tied to irrational fears, weighed down by hatred, held in bondage by an unforgiving heart, shackled by our past … it can be anything that makes us unfree. This prison of our own making is the most tragic of all, but we can break its chains. The power is within us to escape to freedom.
