For many years, Silsilah has given formation to the City Jail of Zamboanga City located in the center of the City. After a few years, we have received an invitation from San Ramon Penal Colony located outside the city proper of Zamboanga City. It is one of the oldest Penal Colonies of the Philippines since the time of the Americans and the inmates there are those who are convicted with different crimes.
It happens that some who have been in the City Jail of Zamboanga City who have attended the Formation of Silsilah program that were transferred to the San Ramon Penal Colony invited us to give the same formation there. We accepted the challenge and we assigned a team of the Emmaus Dialogue Movement, a catholic group, part of the Silsilah Dialogue Movement with an Imam, the teacher of the Silsilah Madrasah to give formation to the Muslim and Christian inmates.
The Emmaus group follows the Christian prisoner and the Imam takes care of the Muslim group. I share here an experience related to the last graduation of a group who have been in a 6-month formation given by the Emmaus group and the Imam. I was invited to celebrate the mass for the Christians and to be with them during the program. During my homily delivered in Cebuano, a local language of the inmates, I shared about the love of God saying that the Lord loves all people even those who are prisoners in the Penal Colony.
Among the many reflections and stories of change shared in that occasion during the program, I present here one who shared his experience:
“Good Morning Family,
First of all, I would like to greet you a pleasant morning. Sir, good morning and to our entire guests who are here with us today.
To Silsilah and the volunteers of Emmaus, Sir/Ma’am, thank you for your time and the efforts that you render for us. Even though we have been together for only 6 months, you have taught us great things, we have learned many things not to make us smart but lessons to make us change for the better.
Because of Silsilah, we have learned to communicate things that are related with our life. We have learned to have dialogue with God in different ways; we learned how to pray which we seldom did before. Through God, we have shared the things that we failed to share even to our closest friends and family members. Through Dialogue with God, I have asked for forgiveness to my wife, to my brothers and sisters, and to all people who I have wronged, especially to my Mother, who I have not talked to for too long until she died. She never knew I was put in jail. I know through my prayers, they forgave me for the faults I have done unto them.
Through Silsilah, I discovered myself more, who I am and what personality I have. I also experienced how to be like crazy, asking myself “why did I do the things that I was not supposed to do?”. I also have reflected on what I can do to make myself better. I can now also control my attitude especially in circumstances where I get mad, because I learned to think first before reacting specifically if the situation can create conflict and eventually end up in a worst case scenario. I have learned how to be humble and to talk calmly, to think fast for an effective way to fix complicated things that usually lead to hate and anger that cause conflict with others. And most of all, I have learned how to value things in the world, from the small and simple to the most valuable ones. The things that can give us life and can help to save our environment.
They made us feel that we belong to society even if we are now living in jail, a place which we consider as a different community. We are in a community where people with different life stories are the ones who we socialized with every day, the life that we thought will only end up here, the life of no hope. However, you arrived and again, you opened up our minds, reminding us to value our life, that all things have sense and worth, that one day, God will allow us to be free and we can finally go back to our beloved families.
Maybe, you came not to help us to be free literally out of this jail Sir/Ma’am, but you gave us freedom through peace of mind. This freedom that you gave us now is the greatest of all. This peace freed us from ourselves -the hatred, anger, and most of all the immoralities that we committed which became as our chains holding us back. You freed us from these things. You gave us hope.
From the depths of our hearts, we are very glad and very thankful to you. Thank you very much!”
Indeed, there is hope even in San Ramon Penal Colony of Zamboanga City and all of us are invited to share the hope and love in society. This is the Silsilah way to promote dialogue and peace.
Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra, PIME
Founder, Silsilah Dialogue Movement