By PRINCE GOLEZ
Manila Reporter
MANILA — The Senate will soon investigate the recent death of a female political prisoner’s infant child.
Andrea Rosal, daughter of former New People’s Army spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, lost her infant allegedly due to lack of medical attention.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said he will file a resolution calling for an “exhaustive” inquiry into the living condition in women’s detention facilities.
“In one of my justice committee hearings a few months ago, we also raised the question on what protocols are being observed in the arrest and detention of pregnant women,” Pimentel told Panay News.
The incident involving Rosal’s baby was “very tragic” and “unfortunate”; it should not happen again, said Pimentel, justice and human rights committee chair.
“A death is a death,” he stressed.
Sen. Nancy Binay, meanwhile, asked the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) to review its policies and protocols on pregnant detainees.
The social justice committee chair said she wants to know if current protocols are “still relevant.”
BJMP’s “unequal and lopsided treatment” against Rosal, who lost her child two days after giving birth at the Philippine General Hospital, was “in contrast to the VIP treatment some prisoners and influential detainees receive from the government,” she said.
Sen. Pia Cayetano, chair of the committee on women, stressed that women’s detention centers should be equipped to handle maternal needs.
“If a woman seven-months pregnant is locked up in a prison cell that is merely 5×10 meters small, cramped with 31 other inmates, then we are endangering (their) health and life,” said Cayetano.
She believed that Rosal was denied access to the necessary prenatal checkups and tests during her detention./PN
