Cordillera Health Workers Being Harassed, Threatened

Cordillera Health Workers Being Harassed, Threatened 

Why, they asked, are they being made to suffer human rights violations, when they have only been working for the indigenous farmers, laborers, small-scale miners and urban poor and, in the process, traveling long hours to reach far-flung villages, some of which could only be reached on foot?

By LYN V. RAMO
Bulatlat.com
BAGUIO CITY – Health workers in the Cordillera who have been serving many Igorot tribes amid threats to their safety and lives spoke out recently in a press conference about the harassments they have to face, and the health problems they have been helping to solve.

Three health workers from the Community Health Education, Services and Training in the Cordillera Region (Chestcore) shared harrowing stories of threats and harassment.

Milagros Ao-wat, 57, married with three children, administrative officer and program desk coordinator of Chestcore, got several death threats via cellphone text messages. On December 29, she received six such messages from two different numbers. The person sending the text messages appeared to be an old acquaintance of Ao-wat’s.

Aside from text messages, a stalker has been visiting the Ao-wat residence and even tailed her for several days.

Cynthia Dacanay, 46, married, with two children, a psychologist and medical services desk coordinator of Chestcore, similarly got a threatening text message recently.

Like Ao-wat, Dacanay has also noticed that a driver of a vehicle tailing her stared at her hard. The car with the driver inside parks where Dacanay parks her car.

A younger staff, Rosalinda Suyam, 27, single, Chestcore’s advocacy worker, got many threatening cellphone text messages. Her stalker tailed her to as far as the Lung Center in Quezon City, when Suyam took a patient there for further health checkup.

Members of Chestcore file complaints against the military before the Commission on Human Rights Cordillera Autonomous Region office. (Photo by Artemio Dumlao / bulatlat.com)

Their tales of being under surveillance do not yet approximate the torture and detention of the Morong 43 in the hands of soldiers, but according to the three health workers, they are already gravely affected. And to think, their supporters noted, that these health workers have literally traversed the Cordillera mountain region just to deliver the needed health services that the government could not deliver.

Why, they asked, are they being made to suffer human rights violations, when they have only been working for the indigenous farmers, laborers, small-scale miners and urban poor and, in the process, travel long hours to reach far-flung villages, some of which could only be reached on foot?.... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/03/18/cordillera-health-workers-being-harassed-threatened/