Take 2 For Alleged NPA Cadre Zenaida Llesis
Mother fasts for release as GRP resumes talks with NDFP

Zenaida Llesis greets the second round of peace talks between the Macapagal-Arroyo government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) with a fasting campaign which starts on March 29, a day before the formal peace negotiations resume in Oslo, Norway.  For the second time in three months, Llesis launches a week-long fast in an attempt to pressure the Macapagal-Arroyo government to release her and her one-year old child on humanitarian grounds. 

by dabet castañeda
Bulatlat.com

The GRP also considered the NDFP’s demand that no political prisoner should be charged criminally in accordance with the Amado V. Hernandez doctrine.

The NDFP placed Llesis’ case at the priority list of political prisoners to be released on the grounds that she is incarcerated with her child who is recuperating from a heart and liver ailment. 

The human rights alliance Karapatan said Llesis was abducted and detained by elements of the Philippine Army’s 8th IB under Lot. Col. Glenn Macasero on Aug. 5, 2002 while she was 11 weeks pregnant with Langging, Gabriela’s nickname. Langging is short for palangga, an Ilonggo term of endearment. 

Development disturbances

Medical records show that Langging’s ailment was due to development disturbances, Llesis says.  

“The underdevelopment of my child’s heart and liver was due to the hardships I suffered when I was abducted and detained by the military.  Her ailment is not congenital,” said Llesis during an interview with Bulatlat.com at the Recreation and Study Center for Children (RSCC) of the DSWD in Quezon City. 

The RSCC is the temporary detention cell of Llesis and her child. Both are guarded by up to six policemen from the national police’s Criminal Investigation and Detention Group (CIDG).  

Prolonged struggle for mother and child

At the start, Llesis already had a difficult pregnancy.  She was on her way to a doctor when she was kidnapped, she told Bulatlat.com. Charges of murder and multiple murder were filed against her at Branch 8 of the Regional Trial Court in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, a province in southern Philippines.

She denied all charges including military allegations she was an NPA guerrilla.

Under captivity, Llesis says she was put under tactical interrogation for five days “with no let up.”  Her military captors played deaf to her pleas to be rushed to the hospital because of her continuous bleeding. She had a threatened abortion while in detention because of physical strain, she says.

As a result, Langging, who turned one last Feb. 19, was born with a hole in her heart and a tumor in her liver.   At the early stage of her ailment, doctors who monitored her health advised the court handling her mother’s case that she be brought to the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC) in Quezon City.  It is the only public hospital in the country which has facilities for her ailment. 

Bukidnon Judge Agustin Javellana, acting on an urgent petition by Llesis’s lawyers, allowed the child – minus her mother - to be brought to Quezon City and that she be placed under the custody of the DSWD while there.

Insisting that Langging needed a mother’s care, Llesis was poised to stage a five-day hunger strike in January for the court to allow her to accompany her child to the PCMC.  Javellana finally conceded; mother and child arrived in Manila on Feb. 8 and were escorted by a convoy of policemen to the hospital.

If Llesis is not released by April 8, the last day of her medical leave from prison, she will be forced to go back to her prison cell in Bukidnon together with her child. 

Not again

But Llesis says she hopes this day would not come.  “If the Arroyo government is not keen on having me released on humanitarian grounds, I will be forced to stage another hunger strike,” she said. 

On Monday, a sympathy fast will be staged in front of the DSWD in Quezon City.  Llesis will be joined by the Task Force Zenaida, an alliance of human rights, women’s and children’s groups belonging to Karapatan, Gabriela, the Children’s Rehabilitation Center and the Health Action for Human Rights. 

While putting her child to sleep, Llesis would be heard telling her child that they are facing still a long struggle. 

“Matagal pa itong struggle natin Langging kaya dapat magpalakas tayo.  Sige, matulog ka muna anak” (We have to be strong, Langging, because our struggle will take long. Alright, take a sleep, child)", Llesis told her daughter. 

“I am glad that my child is recuperating fast but I hope that she will be given a chance to live in a normal setting. I don’t want her to grow up in prison.  I am willing to sacrifice some more to assure that me and my child will be released the soonest possible time,” she said. 

Before she became a community organizer, Llesis started as a student activist in her high school years.  She served as the provincial coordinator of the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) for four years since 1986.  She has lost her sister, Arlyn, at the hands of the military.  Arlyn, also a student activist, was murdered by the military on March 25, 1989. Bulatlat.com

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