Hunger Strike and a Distress Flight to Manila
Zenaida Llesis, an alleged NPA, brings sick child to hospital

Held in prison for two years now for being an alleged New People’s Army guerrilla, 41-year-old Zenaida Llesis went on a hunger strike to force a Bukidnon judge to allow her to accompany her child for emergency treatment in a Manila hospital. Baby Gabriela, who will turn one on Feb. 19, was diagnosed with a hole in her heart and a tumor in her liver.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

Gabriela Llesis could be considered lucky; she does not know yet what guns are for. When Gabriela, who is turning one this Feb. 19, was taken to the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) last Feb. 8, her mother Zenaida was escorted by more than 20 policemen armed with baby Armalites and some wearing bullet-proof vests. The policemen went inside the PCMC with their guns, unmindful of the commotion they were starting to create. Some of them even went into the emergency room, causing considerable alarm among the doctors and nurses as well as the patients and their parents.

Baby Gabriela Llesis in her hospital room with mother Zenaida (center), while beside them grandma watches TV.  Photo by Alexander Martin Remollino

One mother rushed from one of the upper floors in her sleeping clothes. “I thought there was a hostage drama going on,” she said.

It was as though an unarmed woman who was nursing a sick child, and who had ended a five-day hunger strike just two weeks before had any ability to escape some 24 heavily- armed, burly policemen.

Gabriela was diagnosed last year as having a hole in her heart and a tumor in her liver. Beverly Musni, Zenaida’s lawyer, even told of times when Gabriela would turn blue in the face from difficulty of breathing.

Were she old enough to understand what guns are for, the sight of those heavily armed policemen could have literally frightened her to death.

She is still under observation and continues to undergo tests.

Stressful pregnancy

Gabriela is the product of a difficult pregnancy to begin with. That pregnancy was further complicated by her mother’s military custodians.

Zenaida, 41, who is accused of being a member of the New People’s Army and charged with murder and multiple murder for allegedly taking part in a number of ambushes, was 11 weeks pregnant when her warrant of arrest was served by a platoon-sized component of the 18^th Infantry Battalion, led by an officer she remembers only as a certain Naple, in Bukidnon in southern Philippines. She was in a house waiting for a vehicle that would take her to the hospital.

She was immediately brought to a safehouse, where she was under interrogation the whole night. “They said we would only be having a discussion,” she says, “but of course you know what ‘discussion’ means to them.”

The next morning she was brought to Camp Evangelista, where she was placed under “tactical interrogation” for almost one week: for the next five days, she was subjected to marathon interrogation sessions that lasted some 20 hours each. “I kept them hanging, so the sessions became longer and longer...“The interrogators merely took turns, but they kept asking the same questions over and over.”

She became very depressed and stressed out as a result, and almost suffered a miscarriage.

“Under such circumstances, in which I was having abdominal pains and vaginal bleeding, they should have brought me to the hospital,” she reasons, “because I was worried that I

might suffer a miscarriage. But the soldiers wouldn’t budge, and kept asking me questions...which I could not answer. So it was mental torture; they kept asking the same questions morning, afternoon and night, and repeat the process the next day. It’s no different from being tortured.”

The Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), which was signed by the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front in 1998, expressly forbids the use of torture.

Early on, Zenaida asked her lawyer that they file a motion to allow her to be brought to the hospital even before the expected day of delivery, because when she undergoes labor her blood pressure rises, which could harm herself and the baby. “So my lawyer filed the motion, which was granted by the court,” she says. She had to be brought to the hospital early on so that her blood pressure could be monitored closely.

But the warden, Rodolfo Cheng, refused to implement the motion. “He said, ‘No, let’s just wait for you to undergo labor before we bring you to the hospital, because it’s not far from here anyway,” Zenaida recalls.

“So I resorted to charting; I jotted down each of the baby’s movements,” she adds. “After a week, I noticed that her movements were getting less and less frequent. I continued charting, and one week before the expected day of delivery I asked to be brought to the hospital, but the warden refused.”

She called her sister and she pleaded with Cheng, but still he refused. “I became angry with him,” she says, “so I told him, ‘I’ll show you the chart so you’ll see that the baby now hardly moves.’ So that was the only time he became worried, and he had me brought to the hospital.”

Blue baby

Gabriela was a blue baby, taking several minutes before she could start crying and breathe.

“I didn’t find out right away that she had a congenital heart defect,” Zenaida explains. “But since she was born, she had always had difficulty breathing. You’d always hear an unusual sound from her chest when she breathed.”

Hospital authorities found out about Gabriela’s heart condition about two weeks after she was born, when she was brought to the pedia-cardio section of the Bukidnon Provincial Hospital.

They also found that she had problems with digestion and had poison in her system. So for 14 days after birth she was given antibiotics, but it turned out she was resistant to these, and she developed a high fever. She was brought to a hospital in Cagayan de Oro City, where she was given another antibiotic while under examination.

It was there where they learned that Gabriela had a hole in her heart and a tumor in her liver. The specialist who treated her prescribed some medicines and said that her condition would have to be evaluated again after two months.

Her heart condition improved after two months, and the doctor advised that she be brought to Manila for biopsy as soon as her heart stabilized.

Long flight

But the flight to Manila was a long ordeal, to say the least.

The doctor’s recommendation that Gabriela be brought to Manila for treatment came last July, but it was only last Feb. 8 that her mother was allowed to bring her to the PCMC.

“Last October, my lawyer filed a motion to allow me to bring the baby to Manila,” she explains. “All through October my hearings were postponed; the judge always failed to show up. All through November the fiscal failed to show up. It was only in December...that the judge decided to have only the baby brought to Manila; while I wouldn’t be allowed to accompany her, being a prisoner.

A month later Zenaida’s lawyer filed another motion, arguing that a mother has the right to accompany her child for emergency treatment.

But the judge rejected the motion, saying there is no legal justification to allow a mother to accompany her child for medical treatment.

Undaunted, Zenaida went on hunger strike last Jan. 20. She was at it for five days. For five days while she was on hunger strike, people’s organizations staged a prayer rally outside the jail, while the human rights group Karapatan launched a campaign through e-mail and fax.

The judge finally gave in to the public pressure, but under the condition that she would spend for her baby’s medical treatment and the expenses of her military escorts. Unable to afford what was being asked of her, she and Gabriela were stuck there for days more, until the director of the Philippine National Police in Bukidnon, whom she identifies as a Colonel Ramos, came and told them that he would take charge of whatever they needed.

Zenaida and Gabriela were escorted by four Bukidnon-based policemen, and upon arrival in Manila were fetched by about 20 more.

As of this writing, Gabriela is still under observation. She also suffers from a recurring fever.

Goodwill measures 

Interviewed briefly by Bulatlat.com upon her arrival, Zenaida said that the government must undertake goodwill measures so that the peace negotiations may prosper. She is hopeful that the government would, as a goodwill measure, release political prisoners.

Based on data from Karapatan, there are more than 300 political prisoners under the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. At least 25 of them have been recommended for release by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP). Among them is Irene Plagtiosa who, like Zenaida, is also a nursing mother accused of being a member of the NPA at the time of her arrest. Among the more than 300 political prisoners at present, three are nursing mothers: Llesis, Plagtiosa, and Linlin Metran of Western Visayas, according to Karapatan.

Zenaida is hopeful that she will be released, too.

If she is not set free, the struggle for freedom will continue. “I will continue to defend my natural right as a mother to raise the baby under a healthy and normal environment,” she says. Bulatlat.com

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