'Another long wait,' kin of at-risk detainees say after Supreme Court refers case to trial courts

Relatives of the 22 detainees who had asked for humanitarian release amid the COVID-19 pandemic are expecting "another long wait" after the Supreme Court referred their petition to the trial courts, they said Friday.

Citing their existing illnesses, age, and in one case, pregnancy, the detainees had gone directly to the SC to plead for provisional release, fearing their condition would make them more vulnerable to COVID-19.

The SC announced on Thursday that it had decided last July to treat the case as an application for bail, which the trial courts where the detainees face charges could hear and decide.

Kapatid, a group of families and supporters of political prisoners, lamented the decision and the time it took to be released.

“Whether old and sick petitioners and a nursing mother who were dumped with life sentence charges should be released is more than a legal issue," Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim said.

"The issue is about exercising the judicial power of compassionate intervention and equity jurisdiction to protect those least able to protect themselves," she said, adding that "a remedy for unsafe conditions need not await a tragic event."

While the petition was pending, the pregnant detainee, Reina Mae Nasino, gave birth. A trial court ordered her separated from her weeks-old baby.

Kapatid said another detainee, Rodrigo Lazar, whom they also identified as a political prisoner, died from complications from hypertension and diabetes in the Sorsogon provincial hospital last September 9.

"Remanding the petition to the trial courts means another long wait as the lower courts would need to hear out the new motion," Lim said.

"Government prosecutors will surely oppose this while heaping more false evidence especially against accused political prisoners to prolong their stay in jail," she added.

Both the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Bureau of Corrections have reported hundreds of COVID-19 cases in their facilities.—AOL, GMA News