BJMP7 continues to showcase PDLs products, highlights partnership with communities

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY – The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Central Visayas continues to promote the welfare and development of Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs) by showcasing their arts, crafts and products and highlighting its partnership with various community sectors in the region in this year’s 11^th BJMP Community Relations Service (CRS) Month, launched on June 1 at the Robinsons Galleria Mall with PDLs’ products display/sale and photo exhibit until June 5.

“The event is very essential and timely, most especially that we are starting to move forward and gradually going back to our normal daily routine amid the pandemic.  We invite everyone to join and support us in our everyday battle the Bureau faces in dealing the safe keeping and development of the PDLs,” Regional Director of the Jail Bureau JCSUPT EFREN NEMEÑO said in his opening statement.

According to JSUPT TOMAS AGUSTINE CATARATA, Chief Community Relation Service Section, that the goal of the CRS month celebration is to initiate various activities in partnerships with other sectors, including the media and to recognize their indispensable role in helping the BJMP to implement effectively the safekeeping and development of PDLs.

Fr. Catarata said that this year’s BJMP CRS month celebration is in partnership between the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)-Regional Office VII and the Robinsons Land Corporation through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to hold all activities in the Mall.

One of the activities initiated by the BJMP7 in this year’s 11^th CRS Month launching is a Product Display and Photo Exhibit at Robinson’s Galleria Atrium on June 1 to 5 with the theme, “Nagkakaisang Kawanihan, Sandigan ng Maunlad na Pamayanan,” Fr. Catarata said.

This initiative serves as an avenue to showcase the skills of the PDLs with the products they produce out of their creative imagination and an opportunity for the Bureau’s Information Officers to flaunt their best-capture masterpieces through photo exhibit, he added.

The BJMP Community Relations Service Month is celebrated in June of every year.  This is always an opportune time for the PDLs to showcase their arts and crafts and earn some money from the sales of their products, Hope Credo, BJMP7-Community Relations Program Development told this writer.

Credo said that all PDLs are trained by the Jail’s livelihood training in-charge and also tapping other government and private sector training agencies to improve on the PDLs’ skills because all their products, arts and crafts are for sale.

More than 500 arts, crafts and products from the PDLs of Cebu Province Jails are on display here at Robinsons Galleria from June 1 to June 5, and in two days’ time it has already generated more than P16,600 in sales, Fr. Catarata revealed.

Gross sales records from the BJMP7’s various initiatives to showcase PDLs products from 2018 to 2020 reached to P902,940 excluding those product displays initiated by the various local jails in the region.

“All the sales are returned to the units, minus expenses for the events and revolving fund and the net income sales are given to the respective PDLs whose products were displayed and sold. Somehow, these PDLs still earn from their livelihood even while inside the various jails,” Fr. Catarata said. (Photos: MBCN)