BY MINKA TIANGCO
The Manila Regional Trial Court allowed on Tuesday a detained activist to visit the wake and burial of her three-month-old baby.
Reina Mae Nasino’s very urgent motion for furlough, filed a few hours before her daughter River’s death on October 9, was granted by Judge Paulino Quitoras Gallegos.
She was given three days to stay at her baby’s funeral until her burial on Friday. The sheriff of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) will serve the court order on Wednesday.
The court said Nasino must present an itinerary and River’s death certificate. She must also shoulder the expenses for her escorts.
Fides Lim, spokesman of Kapatid, a support group for families and friends of political prisoners, said the granting of Nasino’s motion is “one of the moves most needed to console a grieving mother and to correct the injustice done to her and her child.”
“From her arrest on November 5, 2019 to the day she lost her firstborn without seeing her alive one last time, Reina Mae undeniably grappled with a lot of pain. The courts failed her several times – to dismiss the fabricated and baseless case filed against her, to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention for the release of prisoners most at risk from the COVID-19 contagion, to stay with her child so she could take care of her,” he said in a statement.
“We thank the said court under Judge Gallegos for not failing her this time and for giving her the compassion that some other courts have not given her. There is no reason to deny her motion. If big names in politics were allowed furlough, the same should be accorded to a grieving mother whose only desire now is to have a last glimpse of her dead 3-month-old child,” he added. (Minka Tiangco)
