the mission of sister Zenaida Cabrera

She is a religious of the Servants of the Holy Eucharist and has dedicated more than 20 years to prisoners in the Philippines. She tells that something is changing under the Marcos presidency, but it is still too early to make a definitive judgment. In the archipelago the incarceration rate is 200 people per 100,000 inhabitants.

Milan () – Something has changed in the Philippines with the arrival of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the presidency, “but we still cannot say if the situation is improving: it is too early and we do not know his political agenda”, the sister tells Zenaida Cabrera, from the Servants of the Holy Eucharist (SHE) congregation and coordinator of the Cáritas prisoner assistance program.

After six years of the “war on drugs” carried out by former President Rodrigo Duterte, who, according to many observers, under the pretext of fighting drugs, targeted the poor, marginalized and opponents, killing thousands of them and imprisoning just as many – gives the impression that security, inside and outside prisons, is improving. “We are looking at the new policies to see what collaboration there can be with the Church,” says Sister Zeny cautiously, as the nun calls herself. “Our Caritas Ministry of Restorative Justice is directly related to government agencies because the people we help are in correctional institutions, therefore we work with the police, with the Bureau of Corrections and with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology. (BJMP)”

According to a 2019 Amnesty International report, there are at least 215,000 citizens in the Philippines who are in prison, with a rate of 200 people incarcerated for every 100,000 people. In November – just to mention the last case – more than 170 lifeless bodies of prisoners were found in the New Bilibid jail, in Muntinlupa, south of Manila. At this time the Department of Justice is conducting an investigation to establish the responsibilities of the crime.

“They are changing officials and directors of prisons -explains the nun, who has worked in correctional institutions for more than 20 years-. Some are doing everything they can to gain the trust of the people and slowly releasing many people, among other things to alleviate prison overcrowding.”

“We were able to recruit some members of the prison police as volunteers,” says Sister Zeny with joy and satisfaction. However, the situation has not yet fully returned to normal: “Before the pandemic we visited prisoners at least once a week, providing them with training courses so that they could reintegrate into society when they finished their sentences.”

With the arrival of Covid-19, the nuns and volunteers had to interrupt their programs, which in some establishments have not yet resumed: “We still cannot enter the maximum security buildings, but we are returning to other complexes.” In December, for example, Cáritas was able to carry out food support programs in medium and low security prisons.

The fraternity table is a recurring theme that Sister Zeny refers to when she talks about her work with prisoners and that has been possible thanks to the support of the Archdiocese of Manila and the parishes that collaborate with the sisters of the Servants of the Holy Eucharist. The congregation’s headquarters are in the diocese of Novaliches but they work in various detention centers: “Our charism is to prepare the Lord’s table for prisoners, in accordance with the culture of ‘salu-salo’, the Philippine tradition of spend time together at the table with friends and family,” says the nun. “We want to give them a second chance to come back to life as a reflection of God. Our vocation is to educate them, making them understand that they too are human beings worthy of love and that we hope that they can return to their family and their community as children of God”.

“The detainees feel that they are far from their natural environment and have no material or moral support,” explains Sister Zeny. “They suffer humiliation and rejection from their families and are worried about the future of their relatives. Prison brings sadness, illness or death.

Caritas restorative justice programs are based instead on the “3Rs”: recover, rehabilitate and reintegrate. “Aid to prisoners is often not part of government budgets, so prisoners depend on charity from volunteers and their own families, but in most cases they are very poor. That is why the help of parishes and volunteers is essential”.