‘Indescribable heartbreak’ that no mother deserves

From the time of her arrest on March 27, 2014, the treatment of then pregnant Andrea Rosal has been dehumanizing, made worse by obvious bad faith, if not disregard for basic human rights. She was subjected to undue stress, tension, anxiety and discomfort in infernal, humid and crowded jail conditions.

Immediately after birth last May 17, 2014, her baby daughter was placed in an incubator at the Philippine General Hospital’s Natal Intensive Care Unit. Andrea was not given the once-in-a-lifetime, irreplaceable chance to see her baby daughter, Diona Andrea, while she was still alive. Andrea was deprived of the opportunity to hear her baby cry and to cuddle her, and to give her the comfort and care which only a mother can. The maternal instincts of a first-time mother like Andrea is no less any other mother’s.

Even as Andrea remains distressed, devastated and even inconsolable due to such avoidable tragedy, the wake of her baby daughter was arranged, through her family and friends, at the Church of the Risen Lord at the University of the Philippines, Diliman Campus for the whole day of May 20, 2014; the burial was set on May 21, 2014, at Andrea’s hometown of Ibaan, Batangas.

Our pleas for fairness and basic sense of humanity, so that Andrea would be allowed to attend the wake of her baby, as well as to attend the burial to give the mother the opportunity to properly mourn the death of her baby, practically fell on deaf ears. It would have given both mother and child due respect, civility and decency, such that what the child Diona Andrea was deprived of in life may be afforded her in death. But Andrea was allowed only three hours during the wake and her request to be at the burial was denied.

No mother deserves this kind of indescribable heartbreak many times over. But instead of her pain being assuaged, she was visited by the cruelty and barbarity of the callous.

—EDRE U. OLALIA, secretary general,

National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers,

[email protected]