Morong 43′s New Mom Asserts Her Rights and That of Her Child

Twenty armed men in three vehicles took her from her hospital room in handcuffs. She was separated from her baby. They took her away swiftly while her mother was settling her hospital bills. This detainee is not a high profile, dangerous criminal, but a health worker and political detainee.

Morong 43′s New Mom Asserts Her Rights and That of Her Child
By RONALYN OLEA
Bulatlat.com [1]

“I felt like I am an Ampatuan,” Carina Judilyn Oliveros blurted out as she described how the guards of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) took her and her baby out of the hospital on Aug. 18.



Oliveros, one of the Morong 43, gave birth to her first child on July 22 at the Philippine General Hospital in Manila. The 43 health workers were arrested on Feb. 6 in Morong, Rizal by virtue of a search warrant against a certain Mario Condes who was never found. They were held in military captivity for almost three months before they were transferred to Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan. They have been charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

The Ampatuans, meanwhile, are suspects in last November’s massacre of 57 individuals, mostly journalists, in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao.

“There were about 20 of them, all armed,” Oliveros said in describing the soldiers who took her and her baby out of the hospital. “Some were carrying long firearms. About ten went inside our [hospital] room.” Oliveros initially refused to go with the BJMP guards but she was told the court has ordered her immediate transfer to Camp Bagong Diwa.

Judge Gina Cenat Escoto of Morong Regional Trial Court Branch 78 rejected the petition filed by Oliveros’ counsels for her temporary release on recognizance due to humanitarian reasons. In a decision dated Aug. 16, the court ordered the BJMP to immediately return Oliveros to the detention facility. The court said there was no basis for granting the release.

“I just wanted to hold my child but they did not allow that until we got inside the vehicle,” Oliveros said.

“They handcuffed me but they did not want the public to see it. I told them, ‘Don’t cover the handcuffs.’ As I was being brought out of the room, I shouted repeatedly ‘Free the 43!’” Oliveros said. “The people looked at us. They have probably seen my picture at the posters outside the hospital,” she said.

“Why would I be ashamed? I told them I am not ashamed of what I’m doing. We, the 43, are not criminals,” Oliveros explained. She was accompanied by Fr. Dionito Cabillas of Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Para sa Amnestiya (Selda) and a staff of the Health Alliance for Democracy (Head) back to Camp Bagong Diwa. Oliveros noted that the BJMP had used three vehicles to fetch her.

In a separate interview, Oliveros’s mother Sheila expressed disgust at the BJMP personnel. “They told me to arrange the hospital billing but when I came back to the room, Judilyn and my grandson were gone. They took them away and I did not even get a chance to talk to my daughter,” she said.

Oliveros said that before the vehicle sped away, she saw her mother outside the hospital lobby, crying. “I was crying, too. I knew that she felt bad that I was treated like a criminal,” Oliveros said as she fought back tears.

At the Detention Cell

Determined to breastfeed her three-week-old baby, Oliveros brought her child to the detention cell she shares with 22 other women detainees, all members of the Morong 43.

The cell was damp, overcrowded and poorly ventilated. Oliveros said there were bed mites and a big rat in their room.

She said the BJMP promised to provide her baby a separate wooden bed, but it never came.

“On our first night here, my baby found it hard to sleep. The next few days have been slightly better,” she said, adding that her colleagues help her take care of the baby. “They all wanted to kiss him and hold him. Later, we agreed that a maximum of three women may hold him for a day,” Oliveros said.

She said the jail warden told her that after a week, they would take the baby out of the detention cell. “They told me to give him to my mother or else, they would give my baby to the DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development],” Oliveros said.

Additional Injustice

“This is an additional injustice to Judilyn. As much like being illegally arrested and detained, being pregnant while in prison is an additional suffering and sacrifice on her part. She was not spared from psychological and physical torture in the hands of the military,” the Morong 43 said in a statement released to the media.

“After being blindfolded and handcuffed for 36 hours, she was placed under solitary confinement. In her cell, she had been interrogated anytime at night or day by one or more military men. She was also threatened to be electrocuted when she joined our protest action against the military who forcibly took or ‘kidnapped’ our five companions from their cells in Camp Capinpin, Tanay, Rizal,” the Morong 43 statement read. “Need Judilyn and baby have to suffer more? Is justice and humaneness elusive again as in the era of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?”?

“It is cruel and deplorable,” said Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Luz Ilagan.

“Camp Bagong Diwa is no place to rear a child, much less a baby. Jails are not safe and healthy places for infants,” she said. To subject a newborn to these unhealthy conditions is downright heartless. Judilyn Oliveros should be allowed to care and breastfeed her baby outside of Camp Bagong Diwa,” said?Ilagan.

The congresswoman further said that the court’s decision violates the baby’s right to be fed, to be raised and to develop in a healthy and normal environment and in conditions of freedom and dignity, in accordance with the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of the Child.

Continuing Protests

The women of Morong 43 held a noise barrage the day after Oliveros was transferred to the BJMP. On Aug. 19, no visitors were allowed inside as a “disciplinary measure against the Morong 43 women,” according to the BJMP personnel.

“We are outraged at the prison official’s drastic and inhumane response to the female detainees’ peaceful expression of discontent. They did not violate any prison policy and thus did not deserve such maltreatment,” Carlos Montemayor, spokesperson of the Free the 43 Health Workers! Alliance, said.

“Prison officials should also be reminded that under Republic Act 7438, every arrested or detained person shall be allowed visits or conferences with any member of his/her immediate family, among other individuals and institutions,” said Cristina Palabay of Tanggol Bai, an association of women human-rights defenders.

“This manifests the worse injustices being experienced by Oliveros and child, as well as the rest of the Morong 43, who are already victims of illegal arrests, torture and detention. Justice remains elusive for the doctors and community-based health workers, even pregnant and nursing mothers like Oliveros. Such is the deplorable state of the more than 400 political prisoners in the country, many of them were illegally arrested and imprisoned under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration,” Cabillas of Selda said.

Appeal

Ilagan said the court’s decision is ‘an injustice to Judilyn and her baby and should immediately be reconsidered.’

The counsels of the Morong 43 have filed a motion for reconsideration.

Oliveros said Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Commissioner Ma. Victoria Cardona and CHR lawyers visited them on Aug. 20. “They told me they would support our appeal to the court for my temporary release,” she said.?

“We call on Pres. Aquino to exercise prudence and understanding on the plight of political prisoners as his late father, Senator Benigno Aquino, was himself a victim of political persecution under the Marcos administration. Free the 43 health workers; free all political prisoners,” the Morong 43 said.

Ilagan pressed for the immediate dismissal of cases lodged against the 43 health workers. She said “The cases filed against the health workers were fabricated and their arrest was clearly illegal. Every day that they remain in detention is a testament of injustice.” (Bulatlat.com) [1]

Morong 43′s New Mom Asserts Her Rights and That of Her Child