Days before Christmas, a prisoners’ rights group lamented on Sunday, Dec. 20, that jail officials still refuse to allow entry of food and other essential items to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.

In a letter sent to Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Gerald Bantag on Saturday, Dec. 19, Kapatid raised “concerns about restrictions on ‘paabot’ or delivery of basic food items as well as essential toiletries.”

Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim noted the Medium Security Compound at the NBP still does not accept food or essentials.

“As we have pointed out, it is already the Christmas season and since families are still unable to visit because of the continuing prison lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBP/BuCor should allow entry of food items and essential utilities like toiletries and rubber slippers,” she said.

With this, the support group for families and friends of political prisoners called on prison officials to lift restrictions.

Such restrictions cover other items like monggo beans, canned goods, powdered milk, sugar, food ingredients, toiletries, and face masks, among others.

Kapatid questioned why even rice was refused entry.

“These food and hygiene and sanitary items are most essential to basic health and nutrition especially during the pandemic,” Lim said.

Kapatid asserted that these items should be allowed since political prisoners are “too poor to afford the higher prices” in the so-called cooperatives inside prison.

The group also pressed to stop “illicit deductions” from cash padala of the prisoners’ families.

“Christmas is not the time to play Scrooge and create artificial crisis when it’s been nine months that we, families, have been locked out from visiting our political prisoners,” she said.