ACTIVISTS and women’s rights advocates yesterday staged a protest rally in front of the Department of Justice in Manila to call on the government to release women political prisoners.
The protest was held two days before the world commemorated International Women’s Day.
Danah Mercellana, spokesperson of the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA), said there is a need for the government to release women political prisoners, most of whom, she added, are just advocating for human rights and social justice.
“We are here in front of the DOJ to call on authorities to continue campaigning for the release of women political prisoners,” Mercellana told reporters.
She said that based on their data and monitoring, there are 761 political prisoners nationwide, and of this number, 157 are women.
She said one of the women political prisoners, 67-year-old Cristina Miguel, succumbed to cancer while in detention in Cagayan in November 2023.
“They are human rights defenders, activists, and leaders in the struggle for genuine democracy and social justice. They include workers, peasants, urban poor, writers and students, among others,” SELDA later said in a statement.
Tanggol Bayi said many of the women political prisoners are elderly, frail, and facing serious ailments compounded by the harsh conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
Aside from Miguel, the group cited the case of Loida Magpatoc, a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines who is detained at the Bukidnon Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.
The country’s eldest political prisoner is Rosita Taboy, 80, who was arrested on May 26, 2023 in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan where she and her husband Antonio Legaspi were long-time residents.
The group said Taboy was widowed when her husband died of a heart attack in his jail cell in April 2024.
“Currently held at the Bulacan provincial jail, Taboy suffers from diabetes and hypertension and finds it difficult to walk without assistance,” Tanggol Bayi said.
Another ailing political prisoner is Virginia Villamor, 74, who suffered a stroke and temporarily lost consciousness in September last year. She was confined for several days at the Taguig-Pateros District Hospital and the National Kidney and Transplant Institute.
SELDA and Bayi said even younger women political prisoners have had to endure not just detention but the pain of being torn away from their children, citing the case of Cagayan-based peasant organizer and writer Amanda Echanis, now 35, who was with her month-old baby when she was arrested in her home on December 2, 2020.
“We demand that the Marcos Jr. regime immediately end the persecution of our sisters in struggle who are fighting for a just and democratic society. In the name of justice and fairness, we call for the release on humanitarian grounds of all women political prisoners, especially the ailing, the elderly and the long-detained,” SELDA and Tanggol Bayi said. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla could not be reached for comment as of press time.
