PH Embassy in Moscow Visits Filipino Prisoners

One of the Filipino prisoners with the Philippine Embassy in Moscow Assistance to Nationals Team. (Moscow PE photo)

MOSCOW 10 December 2019 — The Philippine Embassy in Moscow sent its Assistance-To-Nationals (ATN) Team to visit two Filipinos convicted of crimes and now serving their respective sentences in remote Russian penal colonies in Blagoveshchensk Oblast Region and Khabarovsk Oblast Region.

From 27 to 28 November 2019, the team logged more than 15,000 kilometers (two-way), traveling by air, Russian railroad, and taxi to get to the prisoners in their remote colonies.

The Team met with the Head of Penal Colony No. 13 in Blagoveshchensk Oblast Region and delivered to the Filipino prisoner there clothes, as well as groceries and toiletries, purchased by ATN Section on behalf of the prisoner’s family.  The Team, through the approval from the Penal Colony, received the prisoner’s short personal letter to his family.

Taking an almost 15-hour travel to Khabarovsk Oblast Region, including an overnight train ride,  the Team’s visit to to Penal Colony No. 3 found the second prisoner to have been exhibiting signs of stress and possible mental dysfunction, a case warranting further assistance.  The Embassy hopes to install a new Honorary Consul in Vladivostok to assist the Embassy in ensuring the Filipino prisoner’s well-being and secure his release.

The prisoners were glad to talk to fellow Filipinos, and could not contain their emotions, with one even cried with joy because of the visit.  The prisoner in Colony No. 13 said that he is alright, that he is getting enough exercise, and he was even “employed” in the colony, making chopsticks and wooden display stands for products for a time, earning Rubles 2,500 a month (deposited to his prison account).  Both prisoners have access to Orthodox priests, with the possibility of having Catholic priests later on. END

Location of the prisons (marked in red orange circles relative to Russia). (Moscow PE photo)

The bleak landscape on the way to one of the penal colonies. (Moscow PE photo)

For more information, visit https://www.moscowpe.dfa.gov.ph, or https://www.facebook.com/PHLinRussia/ or https://twitter.com/phlinrussia.