30 April 2020
The Honorable Diosdado M. Peralta
Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the Philippines
2nd Floor, Supreme Court New Building
Padre Faura St., Ermita, Manila 1000
Dear Honorable Chief Justice,
Warmest greetings!
We hope that Your Honor and the rest of the Justices and your respective families are in good condition amid this very trying time. We are sincerely hoping that, like many front liners, you are safe from COVID19 so as to continue with your duty of guarding and promoting justice for our country and people.
I am writing to you, on behalf of my brothers and my ailing mother, in support of the petition for the immediate release on recognizance of my 62-year old father, Renante Gamara, along with other sick, elderly and pregnant prisoners in the light of the pandemic that has been hitting thousands in our country. We are appealing to you with sincerest intentions of rendering humanitarian considerations for persons like my father, who are most vulnerable to the deadly virus and illness.
Tatay, as we call him, has been an advocate of finding natural ways to staying healthy when he himself became hypertensive. But aging isn’t really irreversible. As the years went by and given the poor jail conditions, his condition has only gotten worse. Recently, he has reported developing asthma and allergic rhinitis due to congestion and poor ventilation. For weeks, he had been sleepless because of the bothering shortness of breath and sharp pain when coughing especially at night and very early in the morning. While his fever only lasted for a day, he reported this to the jail clinic and was under monitoring for a while. His symptoms come and go; but without proper diagnosis, treatment, much more an enabling condition for aging people like him, our worries will remain as his developing symptoms put him at a greater risk for contracting other illnesses, if not COVID19. We have been aware that there have also been deaths in the prisons since lockdown, which have not been conclusive to be COVID-caused simply because testing is not readily available. And much recently, the news about the death of two inmates in CIW, the exponential spread of the killer virus in Quezon City Jail, National Bilibid Prisons and Cebu City Jail cannot but bring us horrors we pray and wish would be stopped.
We have made efforts to deliver nutritious food and supplements regularly but these were never enough, especially now that it has been restricted due to the ECQ. We know that the BJMP overseeing MMDJ4 where my father is currently detained is doing its best. But congestion, the built-in vulnerabilities of our prisons and the potency of this virus are just too complicated to manage and lives are at stake, real-time.
We are encouraged by the House Committee on Justice Chair Rep. Veloso’s words in their recommendation which said, “[to] do nothing in this time of national public health emergency would effectively be sentencing these detainees to death while their cases are still pending before the court.” And even more, with the latest iteration of the Honorable Court through a circular to decongest the jails also in the light of responding to the crisis.
Tatay is the most soft-spoken, caring man I’ve known, just like his father, our Lolo. He never lifted a finger on any of us and has always taught us the same values he grew up with—love of thy neighbor, especially the poor. We grew up in a humble but very religious family in Batangas; he himself grew up serving the altar in our Basilica before becoming a working student in Mapua aspiring to become a chemical engineer. But due to the family’s economic challenges, he chose to leave his studies and work full-time. That’s where his activism began—as a worker in General Motors who found himself jobless the morning after their union was established. Like my mother whom he met in the factories, since then, he dedicated himself to helping other workers like him. He was a founding member of Kilusang Mayo Uno and immersed himself in the problems and daily lives of workers and other urban poor in the metro. And with that deep knowledge and sense, he was invited to contribute on these matters in the peace negotiations.
But while working on it and continuing his long-time advocacy through his involvement in KMU and other legitimate organizations with similar causes, he was arrested, at first arbitrarily (no warrant, subjected to torture) and then by virtue of an alias warrant. After being released to participate in the peace-building efforts, he was again arrested in March 2019 in Imus, Cavite. This time, without an arrest warrant but with a search warrant named after the owner of the coffee shop (who is also a long-time friend and priest) where he was at that time. Police allegedly found firearms and explosives in a table near him. Several days after and while already in detention, police raided another house in Marikina City where they allegedly found another set of firearms and explosives, insisted to be still his.
Your Honor, Tatay is such a family man, a thoughtful musician to us, respected and looked up to by our relatives and in our community. He deserves to be free and with my ailing mother. We are grateful that His Eminence Rhee Timbang, the Obispo Maximo of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, where I also used to serve and work for five years, has gracefully opened the Church’s doors and be his guarantor if the Honorable Court decides to release him in recognizance. Church people in our hometown would be willing, too, if it hadn’t been for the logistical reasons that might be required by the court and the ECQ.
With compassionate regard to persons deserving of chance and space to contribute fruitfully to the betterment of our country, we fervently hope and trust that Your Honor will heed this call.
Maraming salamat at ingat po!
Respectfully,
(Sgd.)
Nicolette Gamara
With Krisanto Miguel Gamara and Noel Joseph Gamara
Letter originally published by Kapatid – Families and Friends of Political Prisoners
