DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Vice Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte plans to build another facility within the 5,400-square meter lot at the City Jail compound located in Barangay Ma-a here to shelter toddlers or infants, and keep them in constant contact with their mothers while serving terms inside jails.

Duterte, described by local journalists as a “feisty political figure with a big heart,” said the facility will be a venue where the women inmates would be provided with an opportunity to nurse and care their children aged seven years old and below.

He has patterned the city jail’s penal practices after Mexico where children of female inmates are allowed to mingle with their mothers inside the compound.

The edifice will be built within the available space along the Ray of Hope Community, a project of the Gawad Kalinga (GK) at the jail facility currently housing more than 100 women inmates that serve as their shelter during their detention, Duterte said.

The project funding will be sourced out from the fund-raising campaign of the Metro Davao Sports Association (MEDSA), he said.

In 2008, the MEDSA, alongside the GK and the city government here, donated funds for the building of the additional 10 GK cottages within the penitentiary.

The project for the women inmates was among the initiatives that Duterte pushed when he was the mayor of this city.