The Manila Regional Trial Court on Tuesday granted a jailed activist’s wish to see her infant daughter for the last time.
Judge Paulino Quitoras Gallegos granted Reina Mae Nasino a three-day furlough so she could attend her three-month-old child Baby River’s wake and the burial on Friday.
The conditions for the furlough included the submission of the child’s death certificate and of Nasino’s itinerary to the court.
The detainee also must be escorted by staff of the Manila City Jail, said her lawyer Kathy Panguban.
The court order will be served to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology on Wednesday, said Kapatid, a group of families and friends of detainees believed to have been arrested for their political beliefs.
“The court’s decision is one of the moves most needed to console a grieving mother and to correct the injustice done to her and her child,” said Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim.
The Nasino family is holding a wake for Baby River at the La Funeraria Rey in Pandacan, Manila.
The family, relatives and friends appealed for donations at Baby River’s chapel room on 2385 Laura Street.
Nasino was arrested in November 2019 over what her camp says are fabricated charges of illegal possession of firearms.
This year, she cited her pregnancy as a ground for release when she and the other detainees asked the Supreme Court to free them provisionally amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the high court released its decision, which only referred their petition to the trial courts, Nasino gave birth to an underweight girl, River, on July 1. Mother and daughter were separated one month later on court orders. River was hospitalized late September and died of pneumonia on Oct. 9.
“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,” Lim said.
Kapatid thanked Gallegos for giving Nasino “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 three-month-old child,” Lim said.
Kapatid cited former presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Senator Ramon Revilla Jr and former senator Jinggoy Estrada as examples of detainees who were allowed by the courts furloughs for reasons including holidays and visits to sick family members.
Vice President Leni Robredo also supported the temporary release of Nasino so she could be with her family and loved ones.
“This is the least we could do for a mother who lost her daughter too soon and under these painful circumstances,” Robredo said.
Robredo, who has three daughters, said the intimate relationships between a mother and a child—from the first embrace up until the last breath—should not be denied.