Pub­lished in Ms. mag­a­zine, Decem­ber 2010

When we enter the women’s ward of the sprawl­ing, open-air prison com­plex, we are greeted by a flurry of yel­low behind a thin wall of bars. The 23 women we have come to visit are already wait­ing, buzzing around a wooden table just out­side of the cell they share, eager to embrace those among us whom they knew in their for­mer lives.

Each is wear­ing a brightly-colored t-shirt that reads “Free the 43 Health Work­ers” and, as the barred gate closes behind the last of us, the crowd bursts into song–a hymn about the strength of women–and some begin to cry.

The women, who range in age, from early-20s to early-60s, have been impris­oned at this facil­ity for nearly two months and, prior to that, were detained at a high-security mil­i­tary camp for three months. One of them is a doc­tor. Two are mid­wives. The rest are vol­un­teer com­mu­nity health work­ers. They are happy to share their stories.

One by one, they recount the day of their arrest: They were par­tic­i­pat­ing in a first-responder health train­ing spon­sored by Com­mu­nity Med­i­cine Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion at a local doctor’s house. They were sud­denly sur­rounded by armed Philip­pines mil­i­tary and provin­cial police. They were bound, blind-folded and brought to an undis­closed loca­tion where they were inter­ro­gated for 36 hours and, some say, tor­tured. They were 43 when they were arrested in Morong, Rizal. Now they are frac­tured into three groups: 23 women are housed here, at Bagong Diwa Prison; 15 men are housed in the same prison’s high-security ward; and five women and men remain iso­lated at the mil­i­tary camp.

The arrest­ing offi­cers claim that the health work­ers are mem­bers of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the insur­gent Com­mu­nist Party of the Philip­pines. They also claim that the health work­ers were mak­ing bombs at the doctor’s home. Recently, they started claim­ing that the health work­ers were medics of the NPA.

The women vehe­mently deny all accu­sa­tions. Numer­ous local human rights, health and women’s orga­ni­za­tions have sim­i­larly rejected the alle­ga­tions, in sup­port of the health work­ers. The national ire sparked by their con­tin­ued impris­on­ment has since fomented into inter­na­tional out­rage. Amnesty Inter­na­tional has called for a prompt and inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion into the legal­ity of the arrest and deten­tion of the health work­ers, as well as into alle­ga­tions of tor­ture, but as yet all 43 remain in custody.

Sit­ting amidst the women, whose sto­ries evoke both tears and laugh­ter, it would be dif­fi­cult to believe that they are ter­ror­ists. It’s much eas­ier to believe that they are vic­tims, caught up in the government’s con­tro­ver­sial counter-insurgency cam­paign before any­one knew what was hap­pen­ing. For hours, they talk about the indig­ni­ties they suf­fered at the mil­i­tary camp where, for five days, they were denied their right to coun­sel. One of them explains that they were dia­pered dur­ing the first 36 hours of their deten­tion, after which they were only allowed to use the toi­let with the assis­tance of guards, who removed and replaced their under­wear each time. An older woman tells us that she was iso­lated from the other women and that the inter­ro­gat­ing offi­cer repeat­edly called her “mother” in between accu­sa­tions. Another young woman recalls the day that three of the women were removed from the cell they shared, the guards muf­fling screams with heavy palms. They never saw those women again. They have since been told that the miss­ing women, along with two of the men, are still at the mil­i­tary camp and that they are “coop­er­at­ing” with officials.

While the health work­ers main­tain that they are not affil­i­ated with the NPA, they are hon­est about being com­mu­nity activists. “It’s hard to be a com­mu­nity health worker and not become an activist,” explains Merry Clamor, a 33-year-old doc­tor. When one sees the poor con­di­tions of the peo­ple, she adds, one is com­pelled to advo­cate in their interests.

The con­tri­bu­tions of health work­ers are pro­foundly felt by Philip­pines com­mu­ni­ties, which is, in part, why so many are out­raged by the ongo­ing deten­tion of the Morong 43. Fol­low­ing imple­men­ta­tion of socially ret­ro­gres­sive pro­grams imposed by the World Bank and the IMF in the 1980s and 1990s, the nation pri­va­tized its health-care sys­tem, effec­tively ren­der­ing it eco­nom­i­cally pro­hib­i­tive and thus inac­ces­si­ble to most Fil­ipinos. Accord­ing to Ibon INter­na­tional, pri­va­ti­za­tion has low­ered gov­ern­ment spend­ing on health care to a mere 1.7 per­cent of total national expen­di­tures over the last decade. For many Fil­ipinos, the care offered by all-volunteer com­mu­nity health teams is the only care they are likely to receive.

“We are doing the work that the gov­ern­ment refuses to do,” Clamor says, “and this is how they repay us.”

The Morong 43 are not the first com­mu­nity health work­ers to be accused of being NPA mem­bers and sum­mar­ily arrested. At least 8 oth­ers have been detained or killed prior to their arrest. The human rights orga­ni­za­tion Kara­p­atan, which keeps a run­ning record of deten­tions, dis­ap­pear­ances and deaths asso­ci­ated with the government’s counter-insurgency pro­gram, cal­cu­lates that 59 women (of 317 peo­ple in total) have been taken into cus­tody as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers under the cur­rent administration–among them com­mu­nity orga­niz­ers, health work­ers and envi­ron­men­tal activists.

Nev­er­the­less, the women remain opti­mistic. While their fam­i­lies, lawyers, and orga­ni­za­tions try to secure their release, they are putting their skills to use in the women’s ward–they’ve started per­form­ing health check-ups on other inmates and, in their spare time, they make col­or­ful beaded neck­laces that read “Free 43.”

Before we leave, they insist on singing us another song.

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