You learn to accept it and get by. After a while you just become resigned, even if you are innocent. There is no official Death Row for women, but 18 female convicts are waiting to die. They are incarcerated at a facility in Mandaluyong, a Manila suburb, where they cut each other's hair, work on their makeup and stitch together placemats. Death Row is just another room in what looks like an old high school.
Inmates lounge around in pajamas on tiny cots.
With its bunk beds and posters of film and basketball stars, the place looks like a sorority sleep-over. The women are mostly young. Soon, some may die. She is speaking of Josephina Esparas, who could make history next month as the first woman in the Philippines to be executed. She cooks, she makes rosaries.