The Asian Human Rights Commission has been informed by your letter dated 9 April 2008 to Danilo Reyes, programme assistant of the AHRC, of the case of Maricel Mahinay and her son, John Paul. As you are aware, Maricel died on 31 October, 2007, due to illness aggravated by lack of food and medicines and John Paul died on 19 September, 2005, due to illness aggravated by malnutrition. (Please see the full text of the letter)
After John Paul’s death in 2005, we wrote to your office urging you to provide appropriate assistance to the remaining members of his family – particularly his mother, Maricel and his elder brother, Daryll. We also requested that they be listed as amongst the indigent families so as to be able to avail themselves of the government’s poverty alleviation programme. We likewise asked that social welfare department to include Daryll in their supplemental feeding programme, considering the threat of continuing lack of food his family was facing, but he was excluded as he had exceeded the age limit.
We appreciate though that Maricel was given health cards when she was interviewed following our appeal for her son’s death. However, apart from the cards afforded to her, there has not been any adequate and reasonable long term assistance afforded to them, such as food assistance and the alternative livelihood. Also, Daryll was never included in the feeding programme.
Two years after John Paul’s death, his mother Maricel, had suffered illness aggravated by lack of food and medicines. They had been struggling to survive daily for lack of food and sufficient alternative livelihood that could have supported their family’s daily needs. She was never able to recover her health and suffered a miscarriage that eventually causes her death.
In our letter in 2007, we pointed out that Maricel’s death was aggravated by the lack of food and medicines she and her family had been suffering and it is the government’s neglect and failure to ensure her and her family’s condition after the matter was brought to your attention that we find disappointing. It is shocking that instead of taking responsibility for these acts of neglect for persons belonging to the vulnerable sectors – women and children – your office has instead concentrated on making excuses and refusing responsibility for this neglect.
The AHRC would like to respond to issues you have raised in your letter;
1. Maricel’s death is aggravated by lack of food and medicines: In our letter in November 2007, we never claimed that Maricel died from severe malnutrition. We have clearly mentioned that her death was aggravated by the lack of food and medicines that has taken place prior to her death. It is the government’s neglect to ensure that she and her family were afforded with adequate food assistance, medical and alternative livelihood once they were informed of the family’s condition. While it is acknowledged that the local government unit (LGU) covered part of the costs of her hospitalization after her death, there was no assistance for medicines and food afforded to her and her family to alleviate their condition prior to her death, particularly as she was pregnant.
Also, John Paul’s cause of death was informed to us by the testimony of his relatives who claimed to have been able to read the findings written in his death certificate issued by Diagan’s Clinic, General Santos City.
2. Health benefits came later, not prior to Maricel’s death: The family’s inclusion as beneficiaries to the social services took place only after their plight has been reported seeking for intervention on September 2005. While it is true that Maricel had been able to receive health cards; had the concerned government agency’s attention not been called upon to their suffering this would have not taken place. However, we anyhow appreciate the social welfare’s effort to cover the remaining cost of Maricel’s hospitalization bills in October 2007, though it was a small amount. The hospital where she was admitted though is also a public hospital; thus, coverage for payment of hospital bills for indigents admitted in the said hospital by the local government is also expected.
3. No offer for piece of land for Maricel’s pantheon: Your claims that the LGU has provided Maricel a coffin and that it offered to facilitate for her burial are completely untrue. According to her mother’s testimony, the financial assistance the LGU afforded to her family for her burial was Php 500 to cover all her burial costs. Is this the assistance the government claimed as sufficient? This amount cannot even pay either the cost of a coffin or small piece of land for pantheon thereby forcing her family to solicit money from other persons. In fact, they have asked the LGU if it is possible to add another Php 500 but this was refused. The money which they have collected from their relatives was insufficient to pay for a coffin and piece of land where she would be laid to rest. This has prompted her family to have her buried in the same pantheon together with her late father.
4. Daryll’s exclusion from in feeding programme: In our letter in September 2005 we already mentioned that it was Daryll’s age that prevented social workers to include him into their feeding programme. We requested that if those were the reasons something must be done to ensure that the boy, who is facing continuing threats of lack of food, be addressed and that he be provided with vitamin supplements and food assistance if he does not qualify in the feeding programme. However, we are not aware of any provisions made for him. In your letter though, you have excused the social workers any responsibility arguing that he exceeded the age limit and that he was not malnourished thereby he is “ineligible” (sic). Does this mean that exceeding the age limit is a justifiable ground to deny any child needing food assistance?
Two years on since our first appeal we are not aware of the social welfares’ findings that Daryll was not malnourish which eventually prompted them to refuse him from their feeding programme. If this were true, has there been any medical proof or finding of Daryll’s good health at the time? This should have been substantiated with medical proof but nevertheless these were not mentioned in your letter of response. So, on what basis are these findings made? According to Maricel prior to her death, she and her children never availed of any health and medical services at the time until their case was made into public.
5. Ineffectiveness of health and basic services: If indeed Barangay (village) Apopong in General Santos City is “a compact community where health and basic services could be accessed (sic)” as you mentioned in your letter; so, why then Maricel, at the time of her falling frail, undernourished and pregnant, not able to avail herself of, or be afforded with this at all. Having health services made accessible does not necessarily mean that the person who ought to benefit from it could effectively and adequately benefit from it. Apart from being accessible, the implementation of the programme should have also been made effective and have reached the beneficiaries themselves. For instance, social workers should have ensured that Maricel and her family were aware and properly informed of these services.
Prior to Maricel’s death, the local contact of the AHRC who is also her cousin had been able to speak and interview her after her family’s suffering had been made public. At the time, she has said that social workers in their village and those responsible for monitoring the welfare of their villagers have in fact ridiculed her, telling her she should have not told anyone of their suffering as they are actually not the only family suffering from hunger and poverty. In justifying the social workers neglect, they have instead blamed her for them having been scolded by the city mayor, Pedro Acharon Jr., for their failure to do their job. We have also reported this incident but no action were taken to have this investigated.
Thus, even if the people are aware of the health and basic services but once they themselves have had experienced forms of humiliation, ridicule and isolation by the very person who are implementing the programme it would discourage them from availing these services thereby defeating its purpose.
Thus, it is not an issue of accessibility of the services alone but the effectiveness of how it is implemented, which we find defective given the circumstances. Also, even if Maricel and her family themselves would be able to pay the fare to reach the health center, if the practices of these field social workers continue as such, it would not encourage them either to avail of these programme.
Therefore, I urge you to reconsider your findings and to also provide sufficient explanations as to how your findings regarding Maricel and her son, John Paul, deaths have been made. For a social department to thread stories contradictory to that of the victims are completely acceptable, particularly for Maricel, who obviously would no longer be able to defend herself by now. It is devoid of any good intentions to help the persons in need.
It is extremely disappointing that not only these mother and child have already been deprived of their rights, ridiculed and humiliated when they were in need, their surviving families too are forced to suffer further humiliation by indirectly accusing them of creating false stories.
I trust that you take adequate action in this matter.
MOON Jeong Ho
Programme Officer
Urgent Appeals Programme
