A week after the world celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger more than 2,000 years ago, the officers detained in Camp Capinpin were overseeing the birth of man’s best friends. Eleven of them.

Tuesday night, Col. Ariel Querubin’s female bull mastiff, Jenny, gave birth to 11 puppies.

This was the account of one of detainees’ relatives: "We are all excited but Jenny had a hard time. Eleven puppies.

"The scene was so funny. Marine Lt. Belinda Ferrer (the only female detainee in the whole AFP) and the Rangers were the ones assisting Sir Ariel. They knew what to do. I didn’t know they were all trained midwives. The rest of the Marines were cheering and counting."

Like a proud relative, the source also said of the baby Mastiffs, "They are all beautiful! They come from a noble bloodline and born to a nationalist environment."

It’s refreshing to hear stories that show the gentle side of these battle-scarred officers. Charmaine Deogracias of NHK TV said, "This was what they missed, being in delivery rooms when their wives gave birth while they were out in the battlefield cradling their guns."

Prison life indeed has a way of bringing out gems in a person otherwise submerged and untapped when one was busy surviving and getting ahead in the rat race we call life.

Querubin, a Medal of Valor awardee, and 25 other Marines and Rangers are detained in connection with the February 2006 alleged plan to withdraw support from Gloria Arroyo in the wake of the Hello Garci exposé that she used the military to cheat in the 2004 elections. The highest-ranking officers among the detainees are Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda (who is detained separately from the rest but also in Camp Capinpin) and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim (who is now detained at the PNP Custodial Detention Center with the Magdalo officers because of the Nov. 20 Manila Pen incident). Capt. Dante Langkit of the Army Special Forces is detained at the Intelligence Security Group compound at Fort Bonifacio.

Jenny’s 11 puppies (all shiny brown) are the latest additions to the animal population explosion in Camp Capinpin’s CMU. I was told that Querubin’s female Labrador retriever, Julie, gave birth to 14 puppies last week fathered by Maj. Leomar Jose Doctolero’s Ranger, a handsome black Lab.

The affable Lab seems to be the officers’ favorite pet. Marine colonels Custodio Parcon, another Medal of Valor awardee, and Orlando de Leon both have Labradors. So do Army Rangers Capt. Erick Sales, Capt. William Upano, and Lt. Sandro Sereño.

Capt. James Sababan has a mini-pinscher. Lt. Col. Nestor Flordeliza has a cute shitzu. Col. Parcon has another dog, a poodle.

But the most vain of all the canine population at the detention center is Pudz, Lt. Ferrer’s poodle. Pudz, who is the son of Maj. Doctolero’s Nova, is always well-groomed and smelling good.

Dogs are not the only denizens in the CMU’s animal world. Cordillerans Captains Ruben Guinolbay and Joey Fontiveros have goats, ducks, chickens, and turkeys.

The officers have also engaged in gardening. They grow their own bananas, papayas and other vegetables. Not only that, some have even gone into furniture-making.

The CMU now, green and alive with all the varied sounds of life, is far cry from the harsh, desolate place that Gen. Lim and Maj. Jason Aquino, the first inhabitants of the detention center, found almost two years ago. The severe living conditions were meant to break the spirit of the officers.

It is a credit to the officers’ resiliency and strength of character that they have transformed what was meant to be a place of deprivation into something that celebrates life and the triumph of human spirit against formidable odds.

Last Dec. 30, the officers were informed unofficially that they would be transferred to Fort Bonifacio; the Marines to the Brig and the Rangers to the Army CMU. The transfer may have something to do with the court martial hearings that are expected to be held several times a week starting next week. Or it could have something to do with the unresolved restiveness among the armed forces still related to the Nov. 29 incident.

Soldiers are used to being transported from one place to another. It’s the least of the officers’ worries if the leadership feels insecure about their detention in faraway Tanay. Their concern now is, would the military have enough cages to transport Jenny and her 11 babies, Julie and her 14 kids, Podz and his whole grooming paraphernalia, and the rest of their dogs, goats, chickens, ducks, and turkeys?