Court asked to let Ka Roger’s daughter give birth in hospital

MANILA, Philippines—Supporters of political prisoner Andrea Rosal—daughter of the late communist spokesman Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal—have urged the court to allow her to be confined in a hospital as she is due to give birth anytime this month.

Members of the Free Andrea Rosal Movement, mostly from Southern Tagalog, trooped to the Hall of Justice in Bicutan, Taguig, on Monday morning to file a four-page motion asking the court to grant their petition for her hospitalization.

She is facing charges of kidnapping with murder, with the Philippine Army accusing her of being a ranking member of the communist New People’s Army in the Southern Tagalog region.

While the criminal case was initially filed in Mauban, Quezon province, the Supreme Court raffled it off to the Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 266 last month, shortly after Rosal was arrested in Caloocan City in March. She was then seven months pregnant.

When the case was transferred, the Mauban court had yet to resolve the original urgent motion for hospital confinement filed by her camp on April 2.

Rosal is currently detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology’s Special Intensive Care Area in Camp Bagong Diwa, also in Bicutan. She is due to give birth on May 28.

Colyn Mendoza of the human rights group Karapatan-Laguna chapter said the detainee’s doctor had warned that there was a possibility she might give birth this week.

In the motion filed on Monday, Rosal’s counsel, the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), stressed her “delicate condition” and pointed to medical certificates that showed she was “in danger of giving birth even before her full term.”

“She was examined by Dr. Genevieve E. Rivera–Reyes on April 8 upon the instruction of her obstetrician, Dr. Orlino Talens, and it was reiterated that there [was] an urgent need for her to be confined [at] Philippine General Hospital under the care of Dr. Talens… because she [was] experiencing the ‘commencement of a premature labor,’” the motion read.

Mendoza said the court has set a hearing on the motion on May 15.

In a text message to the Inquirer, NUPL secretary-general Edre Olalia said: “No civilized society keeps its mothers-to-be in jail. Human decency and courtesy dictate she should be immediately confined [in] a hospital to give birth to a new human life. It is not only a basic humanitarian instinct; it is a no-brainer.”