Quezon City inmates attend voter education workshop

MANILA, Philippines - Some 300 inmates from various jails in Quezon City yesterday attended the first ever voter’s education workshop seminar to be conducted in jails in the country.

The Prisoners’ Rehabilitation and Empowerment Services Organization (PRESO, Inc), a non-government organization advocating empowerment for jail detainees, among them the exercise of their right to vote, conducted the exercise with the supervision of the Commission on Elections. Preso officials also said they intende to closely coordinate with other interested NGOs and groups for a common module in the conduct of similar semnars for jail detainees in the National Capital Region.

Comelec Commissioner Rene Sarmiento acknowledged Preso’s contribution in the passage of a Comelec minute resolution allowing detainees to register and vote. Sarmiento said Preso’s efforts to help pass the resolution does not stop here. He said there is a need to educate them as they exercise their right to vote.

Comelec Minute Resolution 09-0307 promulgated on May 26, 2009 resolved to approve and adopt the proposal of the Comelec’s Committee on Detainee Registration and Voting “to provide a mechanism for qualified detainees to exercise their right to vote.

Quezon City Jail Warden Nestor Velasquez said there are about 2,800 detainees at the city jail. He said this resolution will enfranchise some 24,000 prisoners in the country in the May 2010 pollls.

Sarmiento made a powerpoint presentation  on the Automated Election System. The inmates pariticipated later in a mock election using the PCOS machines brought in by the Comelec.

Preso lawyers also discussed the detainees’ right to vote and the importance of exercising this right which is not suspended when they are detained for any violation of the laws of the land.

Participants included 259 male inmates and some 30 female inmates of the Quezon City Jail, interested inmates at the BJMP, Preso Board members, volunteers, the media, and representatives of mandated organizations from the PPCRV, the Diocese of Cubao Prison Ministry and the detainees’ families.      – Jerry Botial