On Tuesday, March 8, former Pinoy Big Brother: Kumunity celebrity housemate Karen Bordador had a positive outlook in life after enduring five years in prison for “possession and sale of illegal drugs.”
“The strength? My family, [and] God, knowing na there’s a future ahead. Na things like these, a crisis in our lives shall never stop us in believing na we have dreams to achieve. So as a woman, go lang tayo. Laban always!” she said during the virtual media conference for her Maalaala Mo Kaya (MMK) feature story.
She added, “Honestly, two parts is not even enough for that five years I spent inside.”
Looking back at the time that she and then-boyfriend Emilio Lim were wrongly accused, Bordador points out that the justice system in the Philippines was “slow and clearly not fair.”
However, she took the experience as a way to inspire other people.
“I mean, what can we do? We are in this situation. So I’m here para malaman nang mga tao; I’m here not to fight or to do anything like that but rather to inspire people to help out the system na para mapabilis; and also mawala yung judgment sa mga taong nakakulong na hindi lahat ng tao nang nasa loob ay may kasalanan at dapat nandoon,” explained Bordador.
She also stressed that inmates should be given attention as well.
“We should give them priority also. Because noong nasa loob ako nang kulungan, there was barely help. The facility was not at par. Ang 35 na dapat na selda na population, it plummetted up to 80. I experienced a situation where it’s not even supposed to be that way.
“So I wanna open the eyes of people. You know, people that matter, people that can contribute to helping out all the prisoners and possibly hastening, and hopefully madaming mapalabas dahil dito, and makatulong ako sa sistema.”
Meanwhile, she does not want to comment on the efficacy of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs campaign. However, Bordador noticed how rampant cancel culture is in the country that she wanted to put a stop to it for others not to suffer the same fate she had.
“People should not judge others, definitely. Kasi that can really put them in a bad situation. Look at my situation. I actually got jailed for it. Pandemic na nga, ‘wag na tayong mag-cancel culture guys.”
Nevertheless, spending time in prison gave her the chance to discover her purpose and reinvent herself.
“Pero inside that five years, I was able to focus on elevating myself, transforming—writing, doing a lot of sketches, reading a lot of books. So it was a lot of enriching. Parang it was five years of isolation pero of working on my core.”
She also hopes she could inspire those who were “trapped in their own minds.”
“And to be able to share that to all of you, and this sharing is not to set me free but it’s to set a lot of people free, and to make them realize na life is great. People out there, they’re in their minds in prison and they’re not even physically in prison.”
Bordador was acquitted and released in June 2021, after a Pasig City Court found “questions of credibility” in the testimonies. It also discovered that the CCTV footage presented as evidence were contradicting the accusations.
The two-part episode of MMK will star Kaila Estrada as Bordador. It will be aired on March 12 and 19.
Catch it on Kapamilya Channel, A2Z, Kapamilya Online Live YouTube channel, ABS-CBN Entertainment Facebook page, and iWantTFC.
