For UST delivery: Letters to Pope seek aid for ‘political prisoners’

READYING UST Around a life-size image of the Crucifixion, workers on Wednesday prepare the stage on the University of Santo Tomas campus in Manila where Pope Francis is scheduled to address youths and religious leaders on Sunday, Jan. 18, as part of his five-day visit to the country. JOAN BONDOC

MANILA, Philippines–Amid shouts of “Viva Il Papa!” demonstrators gathered in front of the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila on Wednesday morning ahead of the arrival of Pope Francis on hopes of drawing his attention to the plight of some detainees whom their families insist to be “political prisoners” and not common crime suspects.

Letters written by the detainees’ family members will be handed to the Pontiff by a bishop, who requested not to be named, in his scheduled meeting with religious leaders at the University of Santo Tomas on Sunday, according to Aya Santos of the human rights watchdog Karapatan.

In connection with the second visit of Pope John Paul II to the Philippines in 1995, the government decided shortly before his arrival to release 24 inmates, of whom 14 were political prisoners, Santos recalled.

Wednesday demonstrators, composed mostly of the detainees’ parents and children, appealed to Francis to use his influence toward securing the inmates’ release from Camp Bagong Diwa and Camp Crame. The detainees at Bagong Diwa in Taguig City have reportedly gone on hunger strike for the papal visit.

Nicolette Gamara, 25, led an assembly of 20 people outside the Vatican’s diplomatic post on Taft Avenue, the Pope’s official residence during his five-day visit starting Thursday. Her father, Renante, had been held at Crame since April 3, 2012, for a 2007 murder and kidnapping case in Quezon province.

“I believe that my father was arrested because he had been an organizer of workers’ unions and the urban poor in Metro Manila since the ’80s,” said Gamara, who had followed in her father’s footsteps as a volunteer at Defend Job Philippines, a nongovernment organization promoting workers’ rights.

Mency Torres, 49, also joined the demonstration for her daughter Miradel, 26, a Gabriela member and Bagong Diwa detainee who was temporarily released recently to give birth to a son at Philippine General Hospital (PGH). Arrested in Lucena City when she was still four months pregnant, Miradel is accused of murder.

Santos said Miradel earlier experienced bleeding but was not given proper medical attention and was even made to sleep on the “topmost bunk” of her cell. “She wants to be with her newborn son but she is scheduled to go back to jail any time soon.”

Gamara and Torres conceded that getting Francis’ attention may be “a long shot” but they still remain hopeful that the “Pope of the Poor” will have time to hear them.

“Of course, we hope to talk to him and have him visit a detention center—or even Miradel who is just there at PGH (also along Taft),” said Gamara.