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

Sa kabila ng pagkakapiit ng Morong 43: Manggagawang pangkalusugan tuloy sa paglilingkod

By Darius Galang

Hindi natatakot ang mga panggagawang pangkalusugan sa bansa na maglingkod sa mga maralita sa kabila ng pagdukot at pagpapahirap ng militar ang tinaguriang “Morong 43.”

Ito ang napatunayan ng Council for Health and Development (CHD) matapos matagumpay na nakapaglunsad ang organisasyon ng kanilang ika-10 General Assembly of Community-Based Health Programs (CHBP) in the Philippines.



Bitbit ang temang “Reaffirm Our Commitment To Serve People Amidst Intensifying Repression And Worsening Economic Crisis,” nagtipon ang mga manggagawang pangkalusugan mula sa iba’t ibang panig ng bansa upang ipagtibay ang pagbibigay ng serbisyo sa mga mahihirap na komunidad.

“Despite the odds, community-based health programs staff and CHWs hold on to their commitment to serve the poor and put people’s interests above self,” saad ni Sr. Edit Eslopor, OSB, tagapangulo ng Board of Trustees ng CHD.

Dumalo sa pagtitipon ang mga delegado mula sa Bikol, Timog Katagalugan, Gitnang Luzon, National Capital Region, Hilaga, gitna at Kanlurang Visayas, Hilagang Mindanaw, Caraga, Socksargen at Zamboanga Peninsula.

Kasama sa kanilang ipinaglalaban ngayon ang pagpapalaya at pagbibigay hustisya sa tinaguriang “Morong 43” na kapwa nila manggagawang pangkalusugan na dinukot noong Pebrero, tinortyur at patuloy na ikinukulong ng militar at pulisya.

“What happened to the ‘Morong 43′ may have sowed fear among our CHWs and CBHP staff, but it is only temporary,” banggit ni Eslopor.

Dagdag niya na mula pa noong 1973 dinanas na ng mga CBHP ang iba’t ibang balakid ngunit patuloy ang pangangailangan sa kanilang serbisyo dahil sa palalang kondisyon ng serbisyo medikal at kakulangan ng batayang serbisyong panlipunan, laluna sa mga komunidad sa kanayunan.

Samantala, tumungo ang mga pamilya’t tagasuporta ng Morong 43 sa Kongreso upang dumulog ng dagdag tulong mula sa mga mambabatas. Umaasa silang ang oversight functions ng Kongreso makikita kung ano ang constitutional rights ng Morong 43 na nilabag ng iba’t ibang puwersa ng estado at ng nakaraang administrasyong Arroyo.

Nagbigay rin ang mga kaanak at tagasuporta ng mga puting rosas at liham ng apela kay Quezon Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III para sa suporta sa pag-usad ng kaso ng Morong 43.

Pinamunuan ng CHD at Community Medicine Development Foundation o COMMED ang health skills training na isinagawa sa Morong, Rizal noong Pebrero nang salakayin militar ang kanilang pagtitipon. Umabot sa 43 manggagawang pangkalusugan ang ilegal na inaresto ng mga elemento ng Philippine Army at Philippine National Police, tinortyur, pinagkaitan ng kanilang mga karapatan at patuloy na idiniditine hanggang ngayon.

Sa kabila ng pagkakapiit ng Morong 43: Manggagawang pangkalusugan tuloy sa paglilingkod

Volunteerism in the Service of the Underserved

by Eric SM Talens, MD, MS, FPCS, FACS


“To serve the underserved”, is the motto of the Ugnayan ng Pahinungod, the volunteer service of the University of the Philippines. Alive and well, volunteerism thrives in the midst of the bustling patient care in the Philippine General Hospital and the academe of UP-Manila.

In counter-response to the perception that the UP had “lost its soul”, the Ugnayan ng Pahinungod was established in September 1996 by then UP President Emil Javier, institutionalizing volunteerism within the university.

Pahinugod, a Cebuano term for ‘offering oneself’, became the moniker for the UP-deployed volunteer. Various projects from educational assistance programs (tutorial services, teacher development, Gurong Pahinungod), to hospital and community health programs (ER volunteer program, health missions, health training), to social welfare programs (program for street children, disaster response and preparedness program), as well as to volunteer advocacy and research programs, had been regular activities of the volunteer service. In the previous year, Ugnayan ng Pahinujngod of UP-Manila deployed a total of 1252 volunteers in 128 underserved communities.



A large part of these endeavours in health had been initiated, coordinated, and implemented by the UP-Manila, the health sciences center of the university. In the previous year alone, 18 medical, 18 dental and 9 surgical missions were conducted in the name of UP through partnerships with various non-government organizations and local government units. The Pahinungods have serviced marginalized communities from as far north as the Batanes Islands, and as far south as islands of Sulu and Tawi-tawi. In its long track record, medical and surgical missions, piggy-backed with health training courses for Barangay Health Workers as well as community leaders, were conducted in remote areas as Barangay Maragat of Apayao Province (a good 12-hour hike from a base in Tuguegarao, Cagayan), the conflict-stricken Lamitan town of Basilan, the remote barrios of Lubang Island (where a Japanese World War II straggler was found in 1975), and the isolated communities of Fuga Island (accessed though a 5-hour boat ride from Appari, Cagayan).

Responding to increasing requests for its many programs, the Ugnayan ng Pahinungod has opened its application to non-UP volunteers. Currently, projects like the ER Volunteers program deployed 637 nurses, mostly newly graduated and unemployed, to train in different levels for service in the Emergency Room of the Philippine General Hospital. Volunteer general surgeons, anaesthesiologists, obstaetrician-gynecologists, ENT specialists, plastic surgeons, internists and paediatricians as well from different hospitals in Metro-Manila had been deployed and are coming back to volunteer for more missions.

Despite the current economic crisis, all efforts are being exerted to continue pushing these programs. Indeed, where will the health sciences be, if not for the dedication of our compassionate doctors to serve the needy in good times or bad.

Volunteerism in the Service of the Underserved – The Ugnayan ng Pahinungod