Female detainee appeals to Pope for her release

MANILA, Philippines - A female political prisoner now detained at the Taguig City Jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City along with her new born baby has written a letter to Pope Francis, appealing for his Holiness' intervention in her plea to be released.

"I long for freedom for the sake of my baby who needs to be with me so I can take care of him after his birth. I hope you can help me," Maria Miradel Torres, a female political detainee at the Taguig City Jail wrote Pope Francis.

Torres was three months pregnant and was on bed rest due to threatened abortion when goverment security forces nabbed last June 20.

Joint forces of Armed Forces of the Philippines-South Luzon Command and Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group arrested her for charges of murder and frustrated murder. 

"I could not think doing the things they have charged against me.I am just an ordinary citizen and a single mother who will provide for my child," Torres said in her letter to the Pope.

Torres wrote the letter a few weeks before she gave birth to a 2.8-kilogram baby boy on November 19 at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). 

The Infanta Regional Trial Court Branch 55 gave her two months to stay at the PGH so she can breastfeed her baby. 

But after two months, Torres is bound to go back in her detention facility in Camp Bagong Diwa in TCJ.

A week before the Pope's arrival on Jan. 15 next year, the political prisoners will again fast to highlight the call to release all their colleagues from detention facilities. 

As of November 30, there are 491 political prisoners all over the country, according to Selda, a group of former political prisoners.