The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) Monday stepped up the agency’s response to the needs of its constituents with the launching of a legal program to visit and provide assistance to some 1,000 Muslim women inmates languishing in Metro Manila jails.

NCMF secretary-chief executive officer Bai Omera Dianalan-Lucman tasked the office’s Bureau of Legal Affairs to launch the Legal Support for Detainees Program (LDSP) led by lawyer Edilwassif Baddiri, commissioner-in-charge (CiC) for Legal Affairs, and Raida B. Maglangit, CiC for Women.

The NCMF program adheres to the policy of President Benigno C. Aquino III’s administration to extend services and provide justice to all Filipinos.

The NCMF task force first visited Muslim female detainees at the Institute of Women Detainees (IWD) at Camp Karingal, Quezon City, on July 2 and 19, and later at Manila City Jail in Sta. Cruz, Manila, on July 23.

Baddiri lauded the cooperation of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), particularly Jail Supt. Esmeralda Azucena, jail warden.

Azucena assured respect for the Muslim female detainees’ religious freedom and assistance them in facilitating their cases’ resolution.

Baddiri’s team assured NCMF assistance for them. “With our mandate to act as the primary government agency through which Muslim Filipinos can seek government assistance and redress, we are here to provide you with the necessary legal, medical, and moral support,” said Baddiri in during a brief program followed with distribution of food and medicine.

The NCMF’s LDSP will profile the cases of Muslim women detainees, 74 at Camp Karingal, for possible legal assistance.

In their talks with the detainees, who are charged with “crimes from petty crimes such as theft to serious offenses like illegal possession of narcotics,” one inmate told the NCMF team she has been detained since four years ago “on trump-up charges intended to extort money from her,” an NCMF statement said.

She voiced hope of her acquittal, but she said she had suffered because the legal process takes so long.

Another detainee told the NCMF legal team that she felt lawyers from the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) representing her seemed not to care, as her lawyer did not listen to her side.

On July 23, the NCMF-LDSP team visited Manila City Jail’s Female Dormitory where there are 81 Muslim women detainees.