Baseline Study on the Philippine Penal Conditions: Nurturing o Human Rights Based Approach to Penal Management ·······································································································································································································································• operating variety stores, or managing furniture shops. The pangkat allows inmates to re-create many of the services and amenities available in the free world, like construction of sports facilities and worship areas, and implementation of recreation and rehabilitation programs. To some extent, the PNP and the NBI Detention Centers mimic the informal mechanisms in jails and prisons, like the formation of inmate leaders, the generation of inmate resources, and the recruitment to pangkat. This mimicry of agency practices happens as the agencies share the same clients. For example, a number of inmates released from the BJMP Jails, Provincial Jails, and BuCor Prisons are re-arrested and sent back to Detention Centers. When they are locked up in the PNP and NBI Detention Centers, they are regarded highly by the "bagito inmates" (or first time inmates) . These re-arrestees are known in the Philippine penal world as tayman and they tend to propagate the informal penal practices they learned in their previous incarceration experiences. Due to the non-provision of food, toiletries, and other material needs in the PNP Detention Centers, most first time inmates are dependent on the direction of the inmate tayman for resource generation techniques. This gives the tayman a leverage to cajole first time inmates into joining his gang. The tayman would provide rosy pictures about life in jail and prison and urge the bagitos to join his gang. The tayman would peddle the perceived benefits of protection of joining a gang when inmates are transferred from detention centers to jails, which are referred to as the malaking bahay (big house). These informal coping mechanisms like construction of tarima and kubo/, the formation of inmate mayores, and the utilization of inmate resources, spawn a certain way of life and code of conduct among the inmates and penal staff. An intricate Batas ng Kulungan or Inmate Magna Carta spells out the dos and don'ts for inmates. A cultural narrative that justifies a particular behavior become available to inmates and staff, and through a process of prisonization or pangungu/ungan, they learn when to use or not to use a particular narrative. For example, inmates may request for the entry of an electric fan, and utilize such narratives as "humanitarian considerations" to justify behavior. However, a penal staff may utilize a "formal narrative" such as, "it will create an inequality among inmates" to deny such requests. The power of the penal staff to deny or approve a request by switching from the available cultural narratives leads to corruption and other forms of abuse. These discretionary powers of the penal staff, on the other hand, are replicated by the inmate leaders in their dealings with lower social status inmates. Thus, both penal officers and inmate leaders, depending on their level of investment to the penal way of life, can generate extra-legal financial resources. For example, newly-committed VIP inmates are "bought" by the inmate mayores, in cahoots with some jail or prison officers, with the expectation that the new inmates will bring resources to the cell and brigade. This intricate penal culture is most apparent in mega jails and prisons (facilities with more than 1,000 inmates). ln the New Bilibid Prison Maximum Security Compound, its 12,000 inmate population has spawned an intractable culture where drugs, gang violence, prostitution, and corruption had become a way of life. BJMP Jails and Provincial Jails with an inmate population of more than 1,000 inmates have also replicated the presence of gangs and drug use, though in a much lower scale. ln the PNP and NBl Detention Centers, due to the smaller number of inmates, the penal culture is not very sophisticated, but nascent form of inmate leadership and resource generation are still very visible. The PDEA Detention Centers have not registered the presence of these informal practices, but with the entry of inmates from one facility to another, this practice may soon creep into the PDEA Detention facilities. The Bl and AFP holding cells have manifested only a few of these informal structures, but once transferred to the jails or prisons, their former clients would soon imbibe these practices. 17