Small coffins
Protester Reina Mae Nasino was arrested on charges of illegal possession of firearms in November 2019. The 23-year-old mother-to-be spent most of her pregnancy incarcerated at the Manila City Jail under, what she herself called “cruel and inhumane conditions.” She delivered her baby at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital.
Nasino’s repeated appeals for freedom on humanitarian and legal grounds went unheeded in this country where the judicial process crawls at snail’s pace, even without a pandemic.
Six weeks after delivery, Nasino was separated from her baby, River, even when doctors protested the separation of the baby from her mother. River was malnourished, the doctors at Fabella said, she needs her mother, and her mother’s breastmilk.
Despite this, Nasino was not allowed to visit her child, and the restrictions wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic only added a cruel twist to the situation by furnishing the police and jail personnel with the perfect excuse to keep mother and child apart. Just three months into her life, River died, and the cause of death was listed as “pneumonia.” It doesn’t get more sadistic than this, I thought. I was wrong.
This is how inhumane the state has become in the Philippines. It would deny a newborn child who needs her mother the maternal presence and care she needs. It would keep Nasino in jail, on charges that may very well be trumped up, if the cardboard convictions of the many who have already perished without due process in the drug war President Rodrigo Duterte declared in 2016 (yet says he cannot win) are any indication.
See, police have been caught planting evidence at the crime scenes of extrajudicial killings before, too. Pardon me if I doubt the “authorities” who have earned neither trust nor respect from the populace. They have the benefit of the doubt: I doubt every word they say.
Nasino was finally able to make it to the funeral service and burial of her River. She was clad in a full suit of personal protective equipment (PPE) and shackled in handcuffs, despite still being covered by the presumption of innocence — she is innocent until proven guilty, and she has not been proven guilty before a court of law yet.
But the state just had to throw its weight around: “Look, we can strip you of your dignity while you grieve. We can oppress you with impunity if we don’t like what you have to say.” I followed this story with tears in my eyes, and I have been a journalist for more than half my life. I have seen many terrible things, but this, this is possibly the worst act of senseless and casual cruelty I have ever seen.
To add grievous insult to fatal injury, the authorities delayed issuing permission for Nasino to attend the wake and funeral of her firstborn child, again pleading the pandemic, and manpower problems. Even River’s funerary procession was defiled by people who reportedly attempted to make off with her little corpse.
How people in my country can still support the Duterte administration, and tolerate the many, many lies and abuses of those whose job it is to protect and serve the people boggles my mind. It is unconscionable support such evil, to my mind.
The poem below is paltry little comfort to the bereaved, but it is at least something I can offer to Nasino, and her River.
Pananda
Para kay Baby River
Tandaan ninyo na sa ilog
Nagmumula ang buhay natin:
Ang munting butil ng hininga
Ay hango sa pag-ahon sa kanyang alon,
Butil ng hangin na lumalawak,
Nagbibigay-lakas, nagbibigay
Ng paghuhugutan ng boses
Para kumanta, sumigaw,
Humiyaw nang abot sa langit
Kapag tayo ay pinagdahasan.
Sa ilog nagsisimula ang buhay
At, basang-basa pa man tayo,
Sa pag-ahon ay bubuhatin tayo
Ng kanyang mga alon
Sa pampang kung saan tayo
Maninindigan at titindig nang matatag
Hanggang dinggin ang boses natin,
Hanggang magbago ang mundo.
Kahit munting ilog
Ay hindi magpapahimlay
Sa mapang-apid.
Narito tayo,
Buhat ng ilog.
Dala natin ang puwersa
Ng bawa’t alon
Na walang nakakapigil.
Halina’t nakaahon na tayo.
Di bale na ang ginaw,
At, kahit luhaan tayo,
Susulong tayo tulad ng ilog.
For those who do not read Tagalog, here is a translation of that poem into English:
Reminder
For Baby River
Remember that it is from rivers
That our lives spawn:
That small fleck of breath
Is taken from our ascent through waves,
Flecks of breath that expand,
Provide strength, give the source
From which we draw our voices
To sing, to shout,
To scream to the heavens
When we are abused.
It is from the rivers that life springs
And, even as we arise, soaking wet,
The waves carry us
To the shore where we make our stand,
Stand strong and unshakable
Until they listen to our voices,
Until the world changes.
Even a small river
Will give no rest
To the inhumane.
We are here,
Carried by the river.
We bear the power
Of each wave
That nothing can stop.
Come, we’ve broken the surface.
Nevermind the cold.
Even through our tears,
We surge like the river.
I settle down to pray now for what justice the Almighty may decide to mete upon the foul souls of those who abuse the power they were given by the people of my country.
I pray that these shoddy excuses for humanity may pay for their transgressions, in this life, and in the next. I pray that every descendant of theirs will also pay for these sins. There is no mercy in my heart for such stains upon my archipelago. May they look upon River’s small coffin and know that justice comes for them, and soon.
I’ve spent over a quarter-century in the trenches. I have written too many news stories carrying many small coffins in their text. The poem I wrote is a small reminder of this grim fact, and I cast it onto the web hoping that, someday, there won’t be any more small coffins bearing our children into the afterlife. May we who are full-grown and strong make it so.
May the murderers of our children never find peace. May they live through hell on this earth before they go on to the lowest levels of hell in the afterlife, and may their families follow suit until every last trace of their genetics be erased from this planet forevermore. And may Bathala hear me and heed me.
