Isis International recently received a letter from Hilda Narciso of the Philippines. Hilda, an activist who has had the experience of being picked up and raped by the military for her activities as a social worker, is now trying to set up a rape crisis centre in her country. She explained:
As a rape victim, I have been through a life of misery, shame, suffering self pity, isolation, hopelessness. But I decided I can and will do something about this. I have discovered that I am not alone. Countless women have suffered the same fate; some of these cases are documented but many are not. In this regard, my friends and I, together with victims working against rape are planning to set up a Rape Crisis Center. We in the group have started to network other victims and sympathetic individuals, agencies and institutions. We have also started documenting cases of rape.
I have been preparing myself for this task. I am also invited to go out of the country to undergo Stress Therapy Training and other necessary trainings and exposures to equip me for this job. At the moment we are in dire need of office space, equipment, office supplies and funds for the operation of the center.
This effort is being supported by the Filipino women's organisation, GABRIELA, and by the church. Because Hilda's case throws light on countless similar stories which we receive from the Philippines, we are reprinting here an article, taken from a local journal, on her experience.
On March 24,1983, a 38-year old social worker in a small parish in Marbel, South Cotabato, an island in Mindanao, Philippines, became one of the many victims of abuses perpetrated by intelligence officers of the Philippine Armed Forces. She shares this fate with other female detainees who have been cowed by threats from the military; others had been silenced by soldiers' bullets before they could even tell their stories.
Two years after her rape by military soldiers, Hilda Narciso still has to see the day when her rapists will be tried and sentenced by an impartial civilian court. Her rape case now drags and perhaps will be kept under the wraps in view of Defense Minister Enrile's public statement that "there was no substantial evidence to prove that Hilda was raped and subjected to sexual indignities by her captors." When such a statement comes from the top, would any lower court treat it otherwise? Meanwhile her rapists still roam freely with their conscience unscathed and tucked neatly under their guns, and yes, probably prowling for another prey.
It was on March 24,1983 when Hilda's ordeal started. She had just gone back to Mindanao to resume social action work among the parishioners in the small town of Marbel. Upon her return, she visited Rev. Volker Schmidt, a German priest. The following night, the military raided Volker's house and arrested all its four occupants including Hilda. She was led to a car separate from the others and while on board her captors started to mash her breasts, open her blouse. All the time, she was blindfolded and her hands were tied behind her back.
She was brought to a safe house and with her blindfold on and hands tied up, was raped by somebody she suspected to be a military officer. Moments later, she was simultaneously abused by around four of her captors one of whom forced his penis into her mouth. Her abusers were obviously enjoying their act of sadism because they were deriding and laughing at her.
With her whole body burning and aching, Hilda tried to keep her senses intact during the harrowing interrogations. She kept a mental account of everything, kept track of sounds such as the muffled cries of pain from some corner of the house or those of airplanes flying down. She was banging her head on the floor and on the wall, cursing and taunting her abusers, pleading in pain to let her die, yet deep inside she knew that her spirit must live and resist the blows. What Hilda's captors didn't realize was that a spirit of resistance was growing in her despite or maybe because of their efforts to destroy her.
So it was during that subsequent detention of six months at the PC-INP barracks, Hilda's resistance never flagged. She wrote down her experience and smuggled it out to lawyers and human rights groups. The Davao-based TFD and FLAG lawyers moved quickly to her rescue. Groups of concerned women like WATCH, through Sister Consuelo and Justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma, met with Minister Enrile requesting an investigation of her rape. WATCH also sought the media for an expose of her case.
Letters from international groups abroad poured into the military's desks to demand justice for Hilda. Amnesty International, the New York-based International Commission of Jurists, and the Lawyers' Committee for International Human Rights were the first to lodge a protest. Hilda received letters bringing moral and some material support from individuals in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Holland. Foreign journalists sought her out to take film clips and interviews.
The list of Hilda's friends and supporters grew in number as her case was played up further in the press. In one collective display of indignation, a group of around 200 people held a public demonstration in Davao calling on the military to prosecute Hilda's rapists and to bring out Karl Caspar, a theologian who was picked up and had up to that time been missing.
With a wider circle of people including the free-er press behind her, the military was wont to protect its image. The Minister of Defense claimed to a foreigner that Hilda's case was an isolated one and "the only case of sexual abuse of a detainee in the Philippines."
The military doctor who examined Hilda two months after the rape issued medical findings stating that "there was no evidence of rape" and insinuating that she underwent three months of pregnancy and abortion even before the rape took place. Meanwhile, military defense lawyers tried to prove that Miss Narciso was in fact a whore who led on and excited her military interrogators to rape her.
Hilda wrote, "I was raped by my military captors; as if this was not enough they subjected me to a malicious medical examination and to top it all, pressed me to desist from further issuing statements to the press." Because of the humiliating assault on Hilda's character, her spiritual adviser Father Victor Helly, an American Jesuit, had to obtain a permit from Enrile to see Hilda and to take the witness stand to vouch for her morality.
Unfortunately for the military, Hilda was not one to be daunted. Even while her case was in progress, she joined a group of prisoners who sympathized with the mass actions going on outside by holding a noise barrage right inside the prison.
The military custodial authorities were so angered that they retaliated by destroying all their beddings, seizing everything that could not be destroyed
and messing up their prison cells. Hilda put up a brave front while the seizure and the destruction went on and at one point even refused to get down from the upper bunk of a double decker bed until finally a soldier pulled a gun on her. The rage that Hilda held back during the rape now unleased itself.
Whatever fear there was before was replaced by anger. She was the noisiest, the angriest, the one who shouted the most numerous invectives. The military, however, could not freely silence her because they did not want the press, which had exposed the rape incident, to have additional fuel with which to keep the issue alive.
The senseless destruction added fuel to a heightening accumulation of grievances. The prisoners griped about poor prison conditions. Collectively they aired their complaints in a 10-Point Demand. Among their demands were the speedy prosecution of Hilda's rapists and an end to "salvaging."
To dramatize the severity of their protest, the prisoners staged a one-month fast. The fasting started on June 12,1983. Each detainee subsisted on a cup of rice and one fish a day plus two biscuits and water. In an effort to intimidate them, the camp authorities imposed more restrictions. Celebration of the holy mass was banned, visiting rights were suspended, letters were intercepted, constant spot inspections were conducted and visitors were often harassed and insulted. Instead of giving in, the prisoners escalated their protest to a hunger strike. Hilda collapsed, her gums bled, her blood pressure dropped to 60/70. The hunger strikers were all reduced to skin and bones and succumbed to various illnesses. Still they carried on with grim determination until the prison heads were forced to meet them halfway. After a lengthy and heated confrontation, they gave in to some of the prisoners' demands among which were improved food rations, two hours of sunning and allowing the detainees to engage in income-generating activities.
On July 26, 1983 the trial court dismissed Hilda's and her companions' subversion case for lack of evidence. Still they were not released and their lawyers had to file a petition for the writ of habeas corpus. It was on September 9, 1983, after six months in detention, that they were finally released.
Hilda's release was the beginning of even greater struggles. The fear, the dejection, the stigma of rape all haunted her during the initial period after her release. She could not feel free, not with the fear that her molesters were trailing her and would at anytime pounce on her again. Her lawyers advised her not to move around too much, to always bring along a companion or to change residence every month to ensure her safety.
To add to her feeling of isolation, some people whom she had counted on for psychological support avoided her or feared being seen with her. Others from whom she solicited possible work so she could start her life anew, refused to offer any help for fear of being incriminated.
To battle with the enemies was one thing but to battle with loneliness and dejection was another. Hilda was forced to battle with both. Only her persistence to overcome the difficulties kept her from losing hope. In one of her bouts with depression, Hilda was able to write a 20-stanza tagalog poem depicting her many arduous struggles in life.
Hilda gets solace and strength from the continuous flow of letters expressing warmth and concern from foreign friends. She is firm in her resolve to try to clear the way for others who will undergo the same experience she has had. With the help of women's groups like GABRIELA, she is presently working out ways to establish a support system for other women who will dare speak up against military atrocities. She feels that having survived and lived through that experience, she is given a second chance in life to be of service to other people. 