ARMM health workers to hold ‘sit-down strike’ for release of kidnapped midwife

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Health workers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) plan to hold a regionwide sit-down strike after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan to press the Abu Sayyaf to release a colleague kidnapped on August 3 in Sulu.

Dr. Kadil Sinolinding, ARMM health secretary, said health officials were increasingly worried over the fate of Evangeline Taverisma, a midwife kidnapped in Indanan.

Military and police authorities said Abu Sayyaf gunmen abducted Taverisma to treat comrades wounded in a series of encounters with government forces in Sulu early this month.

Muslims were expected to end their fasting either by the 29th or the 30th.

“We want to pressure them (kidnappers) by holding a regionwide sit-down strike so they, too, may feel how it is when their relatives or loved ones are left unattended to by health workers,” Sinolinding said.

But while health workers will turn away ordinary cases, Sinolinding said that health workers will attend to patients with life-threatening afflictions.

“We will attend to them as we appeal once more to the kidnappers to free our hard-working health provider,” he said.

The sit-down strike is the second activity to be held by health workers in the five-province region this month after  prayer rallies  in the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi last August 6.

“Three weeks have passed and Taverisma is still in the hands of her captors. We beg them to please let her go; she is just a lowly employee whose services are badly needed in the community,” Sinolinding said.

Naguib Sinarimbo, ARMM executive secretary, appealed to Sulu officials, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to help obtain the release of the 55-year-old midwife.

But while Taverisma remained in captivity, suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits snatched two more people in Patikul, also in Sulu, on Sunday.

Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the military’s Western Mindanao Command based in Zamboanga City, identified the victims as 60-year-old Ambon Blas and 25-year-old Perlita Bagay. The victims were second-hand clothing vendors.

“The two victims were riding tandem (on a motorcycle) when they were abducted by the group of Basaron Aruk near Latih Elementary School,” Cabangbang said. Aruk is an alleged Abu Sayyaf leader in Patikul.

The Abu Sayyaf, a band of self-styled Islamists linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah, is also holding several other people  hostage, including a Malaysian gecko trader and a visiting Indian national.