
Business, entrepreneurship courses for PDLs
THE Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) is looking forward to seeing its wards (persons deprived of liberty) have their decent livelihood upon reintegration into the community through “Education Behind Bars” program.
Acknowledging realities that employers usually prefer hiring workers without past criminal records, the jail bureau leadership is now offering business and entrepreneurship courses to give PDLs much better chances to earn and support their respective families through the skills they learned from the bureau initiative.
In an interview, BJMP-National Capital Region director Chief Supt. Clint Russel Tangeres said that PDLs are encouraged to take this educational opportunity seriously for their future betterment.
Metro jail facilities, according to Tangeres, are now offering Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship scholarships to provide their wards with business management skills they can use when they get their release papers.
Showing compassion to the former PDLs, Tangeres said it would be difficult for ex-detainees to turn a new leaf in life as most business establishments shy away from applicants with previous criminal records.
With these skills in business degrees and entrepreneurship, Tangeres pointed out that former PDLs need not to work for other employers, scour for employment vacancies, suffer the indignity of rejection, or in the worst scenario resort to nefarious ways to earn a living and instead be “their own boss’’ of their personal business ventures.
“Negosyo na right away, kaya hindi na (PDL) mangamuhan. Pag naghanap ng trabaho, background check. . . Ayoko sayo dati kang nag drugs. . .Hindi mawawala yun. Normal sa employer na piliin yung walang (criminal) record. Hahanapan ka ng NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), police clearance,’’ Tangeres said.
With the “Education Behind Bars,” the BJMP official stressed this important point that education is a life-turning tool for personal transformation and social change, offering the PDLs the golden chance to lead a righteous and productive path in mainstream society.
Meanwhile, Tangeres said there are also cases that former inmates who may have successfully ventured into business on their own, and could show sympathy to their former “colleagues” as they look back at the hard times they shared inside the four-cornered cells.
The BJMP-NCR official said the business degree educational scholarship program started at the Quezon City Jail Female Dormitory (QCJFD), producing 19 PDL graduates.
At present, Tangeres said that 50 PDLs at the Quezon City Jail Male Dormitory (QCJMD) are also enrolled in business management and entrepreneur courses with the BJMP continuing with the educational program in other facilities.
Just recently, the Rizal Technological University professors, he added, are now engaged in a similar program for the PDLs in the BJMP’s Mandaluyong City Jail facilities.
On the other hand, BJMP’s teaching personnel are tasked with the coordination and supervision duties in the classroom setting as well as providing the PDLs assistance with their assigned home work.
In praising the BJMP’s educational program partners, Tangeres praised BJMP partners Quezon City University and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines for assigning teaching personnel and professors for the PDL enrollees in the Quezon City and Manila jail facilities respectively.