“It was never too late to be kind; it’ll never be too late to help”
Those were the words of our outreach head as we started our program for our outreach activity themed PARA SA PAGBABAGO: Pangasinan Provincial Jail gift giving and relief operation program. An event spearheaded by our company and Caritas Philippines (a humanitarian, development and advocacy arm of the Catholic Church) which aims in helping those in need and providing relief and rehabilitation programs for the catholic community.
In this program, we prioritized inmates (both male and female) who don’t have visitors from their families or friends for a long period of time. According to them this was due to financial and willingness to go all the way to Pangasinan from their provinces. Most of the inmates were not sentenced yet and were placed there during their trials, waiting if they’ll be sent home or transferred to “munti” (muntinlupa Jail in manila).
We gave a lot of efforts, sweat and time for this event to be successful, thanks to my passionate and hardworking friends and volunteers. It's supposed to be part of the Christmas gift giving of our company last December but due to lack of donations and funds it was moved last January 27, 2018.
It was worth the wait.
39 Volunteers. 5 Company sites. 18 hours. 1 Charitable event. Endless Possibilities.
Lifetime Experience.
Event Preparations
Departure to Pangasinan was 7:00 Am MNL and it was a Saturday so everyone was from their last night shifts. Luckily, I was in a graveyard shift from 9:00PM – 5:30Am so I have time to prep myself for the event.
What makes volunteering so much fun? Is that you make new friends. Each company site has their own service van going to the outreach site so it’s quite exciting whose going to seat next to you and whose going to be your “barkada” for the day. And this event didn’t disappoint me. Indeed I met a number of new friends or “Van Mates” as we call ourselves. They were Jesse, Cham, MJ (our POC), Therese and Ate Nit who’s as passionate and funny as I am. The long drive to Pangasinan didn’t bother me at all because of them.
We arrived at Poblasion Pangasinan at around 12 noon and after we finished our lunch we headed to our main location to sort out the donations given by employees and brought by volunteers. Most of the donations were clothes, towels, toiletries (alcohols, toothpaste, soap and powder) and "banigs" (Sleeping Mats). We as well sorted our prizes for the games.
Program
Before we started our program, a welcome speech was given us by Sister Acela (Caritas Representative and member of the prison ministry) and our outreach head gave a short review of the Do’s and Don’ts inside the prison, precautionary measures when talking with them and reminding us that these people were not as harmful as the society pictured them to be and we should still treat them as normal individuals.
We started an event with a mass lead by Rev. Father Joseph Maneres. Volunteers and inmates were able to share the Holy Mass and it’s so nice to see that gaps are starting to fade.
After the Mass, we started the program proper by introducing the company and caritas’s purpose of helping the inmates lessen their burden especially to those who didn’t see their families with the aid of clothes and toiletries.
Then the fun begins with parlor games. Games included the famous “Hep hep Hooray” where a volunteer was paired with one inmate and they will play the game as a team. The winner received a bag of toiletries. The second game was “Find me game” we gave out 10 prizes (chocolates) for those 10 people who can bring the random items that the host was looking for. And the last game was the “Longest to say “Para sa Pagbabago” in which an inmate was teamed up with a volunteer and the pair who had the longest time to say the phrase without stopping wins. The winner got a big sleeping mat and toiletries.
"Hep hep hooray game"
"hep hep hooray" and Find me game Winners
“Longest to say “Para sa Pagbabago” winners
On the other hand, inside the visiting area of the prison, some of the volunteers talked with the female inmates. They’ve shares their experiences inside the prison. We were not allowed to ask questions about their sentences or the crimes they’ve committed by some proactively shared it with us, not to intimidate or scare us but rather to teach us not to do what they have done, be more careful with our decisions and to strengthen our faith in God. Which made this activity meaningful, we shared something to them and we learned something in return.
Ending remarks
After five productive hours. Our outreach head gave his closing remarks and gave them some encouraging words to the inmates about faith and freedom. We bid our goodbyes to the inmates and police officers and thanked them for this awesome experience.
INSIGHT :)
Looking at those eyes of the inmates, they were so happy and the flashes of their smiles, it makes me think I AM SO BLESSED. Not just blessed to be living outside the free world and being with my family and friends, but blessed to be capable in giving JOY to them. I never imagined in my whole life as a volunteer of various charitable events that I’ll be conversing and will be spending hours with these inmates whom the society treated as vicious and harmful. I’m grateful that this activity made me realize that one’s wrong doing won’t define who they really are. People don’t know their stories, people don’t know how they’ve suffered from their mistakes but through this activity, I made a simple contribution to lessen their burden and to make them happy for a day despite their struggles inside that prison.
Bonuses
One of the perks of volunteering from out of towns charity apart from sharing and helping the community is you get to know the cities better and you can experience their delicacies. So before we hit the road back home, we were given ample time to buy “pasalubongs” from the city and enjoy the place a more.
We went the Pangasinan Capitol Beach Front a public beach famous for the people's discipline to maintain cleanliness.
And I since Pangasinan was famous for their Bagoong (Shrimp Paste) festival and boneless Bangus I bought some for myself. I also bought an Alkansiya (Coin bank) from one of the inmates, which will help them raise funds for their everyday needs like toiletries in prison.
Coin bank made of colored rattan hand made by one of the inmate. Only for 120 php ($2.32).
Boneless Bangus - 110 php only for 2
Fish Sauce - 15 php ( Shocked by how cheap this is, in Manila it around 60-100phph)
Tinapa (Smoked Fish) - 35 php
And Last but definitely not the least , we had our dinner and got a taste of the famous "PIGAR-PIGAR" and their own version of "BULALO"
"PIGAR-PIGAR" - ( Deep-fried Beef topped with large onions and cabbage)
"BULALO" - (beef shank stew)
Thanks for dropping by!
