(We yield this space to the statement of the Public Interest Law Center due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
AUTHORITIES’ denial of even the slightest human consideration to political detainee Raena Mae Nasino during the Oct. 14 wake and Oct. 16 burial of her new-born baby, River, reflects the series of rights violations she has suffered as a detained mother.
Raena Mae was among political detainees who, through the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), filed last April a petition before the Supreme Court for their temporary release on humanitarian grounds. Raena Mae, pregnant at that time, joined 21 elderly and sick political detainees vulnerable to the deadly COVID-19, especially considering the extreme congestion of jails.
The Supreme Court, however, did not immediately resolve the petition. In the meantime, Raena Mae gave birth to River on July 1, 2020 sans any decision on the petition. It was only on July 28, 2020 that the Supreme Court issued a decision, shirking to rule but passing the buck instead to the trial courts hearing the cases of the petitioners.
Due to her predicament and her baby’s low birth weight, Raena Mae upon childbirth pleaded to the Regional Trial Court of Manila, where the trumped-up cases against her are pending, to allow her to stay in the hospital or in a suitable facility to nurse her baby back to health. Unfortunately, the court denied her humanitarian considerations.
When River became seriously ill and was rushed to Philippine General Hospital on the last week of September, Raena Mae again asked the trial court to allow her to visit her unwell baby. Yet again, her pleas fell on deaf ears until her baby died on Oct. 9, 2020. Worst of all, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the National Capital Region Police Offic, her custodian and escorts to the wake and burial of her lost child, viciously kept her tortuously handcuffed, restricted her movements and cut short her visit, depriving her and her family a solemn wake and burial.
The cruel treatment of grieving mother Raena Mae clearly shows the government’s savage political persecution of an activist. It also demonstrates the double standard in the treatment of political detainees, in stark contrast to the special treatment given to the rich and the powerful like Juan Ponce Enrile, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Ampatuans.
