Military overkill in the handcuffing of Eric Acosta

After political prisoner Eric Acosta (right) left his jail cell in Calbayog, Samar, to fly to Manila in the company of Chief Public Attorney Persida Rueda-Acosta, he willingly gave up his seat in true gentlemanly fashion to a lady with a luggage and took a less comfortable seat inside the shuttle bus that brought the plane passengers to the NAIA 3 terminal. The guard from Samar assigned to him, Jesus Ostulano, maintained a respectful distance. The blogger begs this question: from the airport all the way to the National Kidney Institute, this young man was without handcuffs so why tie him now to his hospital bed like a crazed homicidal maniac that he isn't? Come on, people, commie-baiting went out with the dishonored Joseph McCarthy. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

From the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers

"As counsels of poet-artist political prisoner Ericson Acosta, we strongly deplore the plan of BJMP officials to handcuff him to his hospital bed while confined and to be guarded with 10 Rambo-type BJMP personnel coupled with exaggerated and unreasonably strict new measures. This would be brazen overkill not warranted by the situation and his condition. He has heretofore not been handcuffed and was guarded by a lone unarmed guard without any incident. It is cruel, it is degrading and it is even inhuman. Again, it is another clear proof that the poor and powerless are treated differently from the rich and influential like GMA, Abalos, Morato and many others who have used their arguably contrived medical condition to whoop it up while facing far greater and well-grounded charges, versus the people including activists including Acosta. "

-Atty. Edre Olalia, National Union of Peoples' Lawyers

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From Luchie Maranan:

"They handcuff Ericson to his hospital bed

As if he can sprint to freedom
With ailing kidneys that 
Prison has done to him.

And they let go of the
Biggest thieves this nation has ever known
They have blinders when torturers
And butchers still roam.

They don't know the poet knows
No jail because the spirit
Has been to the streets, farms and hills
And it is in the people's heart he lives."
 

--Luchie Maranan