Gender-Responsive Policies and Technology Alleviate the Plight of Filipino Women Deprived of Liberty

CTC2025 Presentation by Persida Acosta and Erwin P. Erfe (CTC2025-PID061)

Authors

Persida Acosta

Chief Public Attorney, Public Attorney's Office Department of Justice Philippines

Dr. Persida V. Rueda-Acosta, DSD. is the nationwide Chief Public Attorney of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), Republic of the Philippines since February 23, 2001. She is the 4th Placer in the 1989 Bar Examinations. She is a 2015 University of the Philippines Doctor of Social Development scholar/graduate, and a 2009 & 2023 Salzburg Global Fellow. She has completed the Senior Executive Fellows Program, Senior Executive Program on National and International Security, and Public Financial Management at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS), Massachusetts, U.S.A. She has also acquired a Professional Certificate in International Management and Leadership from the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies in London, United Kingdom. As a passionate advocate of prison reforms, she was granted a scholarship on New Approaches to Prison Management and Rehabilitation in 2013, and National Security in 2016, by the Galilee International Management Institute (GIMI) international programs in Nahalal, Israel.

Erwin P. Erfe

Deputy Chief, Public Attorney of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO)

DCPA Erfe is a lawyer and registered physician. Before successfully hurdling the 2001 Philippine Bar examination, he passed both the Philippine Physician Licensure Examination and the United States Medical Licensure Examinations. He holds university degrees in psychology (University of the Philippines-Diliman), management (Master’s degree, Philippine Christian University), medicine (Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila) and law (Manila Law College). Currently, he is writing his Master of Laws thesis after passing the comprehensive examination at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila Graduate School of Law. He also attended the Master of Arts in Conflict, Peace and Security Program, a joint international program of the Universidad Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain) and United Nations Training Institute (Geneva, Switzerland). In the field of forensics, he obtained extensive trainings from UP-Diliman Anthropology Department, Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell’s Laboratory of Forensic Science, New York; and the Anthropological Research Facility, “The Body Farm,” Knoxville, TN.

As an advocate for persons deprived of liberty, he serves as the head of the medical side of PAO’s Legal, Medical, Dental, Optical Jail Visitation and Decongestion Program. He is also an active member of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA), and had attended some of its international conferences: Thailand (2007); Czech Republic (2008); Singapore (2011, 2024); Mexico (2012); Australia (2015, 2023); Argentina (2019).

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