Rosal asks court permission to attend wake, burial of baby

Andrea Rosal weeps as she hugs her dead two-day-old baby. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Just last week, political prisoner Andrea Rosal was asking the court to allow her to give birth in a hospital. In a tragic turn of events, she is now asking for permission to bury her newborn child.

In a four-page urgent motion filed by her counsel on Monday afternoon, Rosal, daughter of the late communist spokesman Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, asked the Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 266 to allow her to attend the wake and burial this week of her baby, named Diona Andrea.

The court located at the Taguig Hall of Justice and under Judge Toribio Ilao Jr.  is hearing a kidnapping with murder charge filed against Rosal, accused of being a leader of the communist New People’s Army in the Southern Tagalog region.

On Thursday, Ilao granted Rosal’s motion to be allowed to give birth at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) in Manila city. Rosal was admitted to the hospital at around 11 p.m. on Friday, and gave birth to Diona Andrea at around 8 a.m. on Saturday.

Incubator

The baby was immediately placed in an incubator as she had difficulties breathing.

On Sunday at around 5 p.m., Rosal’s baby daughter passed away due to hypoxemia or abnormally low levels of oxygen in the blood.

Citing “humanitarian grounds,” Rosal’s counsel from the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) asked that she be allowed to attend Diona Andrea’s wake, arranged by Rosal’s family and friends on May 20 at the Church of the Risen Lord at the University of the Philippines, Diliman campus, and the baby’s burial, scheduled on May 21 in Rosal’s hometown of Ibaan, Batangas.

“This will give both mother and child due respect, civility and decency, as what the child Diona Andrea was not given in life, may she be shown in death,” the motion read.

The NUPL lamented that “immediately after birth, [Rosal’s] baby daughter was placed in the incubator of the hospital’s Natal Intensive Care Unit. [Rosal] was not given the once-in-a-lifetime irreplaceable chance to see her baby daughter while she was still alive. She was deprived the opportunity to hear her baby cry and to cuddle her, and to give her the comfort and care, which only a mother could give.”

The motion will be heard at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and Ilao is expected to decide on it in open court, NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia has told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The then seven-months pregnant Rosal was arrested in Caloocan city on March 27, and was detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Special Intensive Care Area in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig before she was confined at the PGH.

‘Unavoidable tragedy’

The NUPL, in the motion, called Diona Andrea’s death “an avoidable tragedy.” The baby’s condition at the time of birth which eventually led to her death could have been prevented and remedied had she been provided with the proper pre-natal care and close adequate medical attention,” the group noted. The motion for Rosal’s hospital confinement had been filed as early as April 2, at the Quezon province court originally handling the kidnapping with murder charge.

The group alleged that in the early morning of Friday, Rosal had already been having contractions, but the BJMP personnel had shuttled her back and forth the Taguig jail and the PGH allegedly because there was no immediately available or reserved room at the hospital.  The group complained that this “definitely caused, aggravated or contributed to the death of the baby.”

Olalia also decried “callous” attempts by the BJMP to bring Rosal back to the jail on Monday, despite having no discharge order or recommendation from Rosal’s doctors.