Search This Blog

Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm Palawan

Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm Palawan is known as the oldest prison without bars, it is a rehabilitation farm where the inmates live and work like free men in the fields of farming, handicrafts and woodcrafts. It is approximately 40 minutes to 1 hour away from the center of the city. Iwahig Prison & Penal Farm (IPPF), a community where almost three thousand offenders roam freely, is being developed as a main tourist attraction by Palawan Liberation Task Force, an organization composed of government, private and international groups.

Iwahig Prison And Penal Farm lies within over 45,000-hectares of land on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. The remarkable thing about this prison is that there are no walls to contain the prisoners and barely a fence to mark its boundary. Given its low security, escape attempts are relatively rare. This may be due to the fact that the inmates are allowed to govern and police themselves to a large extent, but also because many of the inmate’s family’s choose to live at the prison too; giving up jobs and houses and moving the entire family to be near their loved one.

As well as the relative freedom of this open prison, inmates are given the opportunity to retrain and can opt to learn a trade within the colony. From farming and fishing, through to forestry, and carpentry. This allows the government to recoup the money spent on the prisoner’s upkeep. Once the government has deducted the monies owed to it, the remaining money goes back to the inmate and their family.

Palawan Postcards