Bilibid: Memoirs of Growing Up Beneath Prison Walls (Philippines) (Context Books Book 1)

This is a memoir of the author's childhood in Bilibid, the national pirson in the Philippines, where his father worked for decades as an employee and minor official. Told as a narrative non-fiction account, the book recalls growing up in a unique environment, the only one of its kind in the country, right after WWII, exposed to convicts and reared by parents who as penologists and prison workers took it as their mission to rehabilitate, not alone punish, prisoners. The author recalls, with compassion and humor, that the prisoners he grew up with were actually gentle nice people. The book recalls the values he brought from this singular childhood, witnessing how prisoners were penalized for infractions, the riot of 1950, Filipino politicians of the 1950s, early loves, the struggle of parents who wanted to give their children the best they could. In English, with old photos of the 1950s.