CEBU CITY, Philippines – Myles Albasin was only 21 years old when she was arrested — alongside five other youth activists — by authorities on March 3, 2018, for alleged possession of firearms and explosives. She was tagged a “high-profile” rebel.
For nearly seven years, she has had to endure ridicule from complete strangers, hours of court hearings, health risks that come with detainment, the inability to defend herself from public shaming, and separation.
For a large part of her adult life, Myles had been kept away from her family — all of them spending days wondering when all of this would end.
This was not the future she had imagined when she decided to go to the village of Luyang in Mabinay town, Negros Oriental, as a correspondent of alternative media group Aninaw Productions. She was assigned to report on the problems of the local farmers with water, harvest, and poverty.
“Rage against the dying of the light,” Myles told Rappler on February 8, a day after she took the witness stand before the Regional Trial Court Branch 42 in Dumaguete City.
The line, from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, was among many she had picked up in the course of her academic years at the University of the Philippines in Cebu (UP Cebu). It is a phrase used by activists to arouse or awaken the masses to continue the fight against social injustices.
For her, the words mean more than poetry.
Myles Cantal Albasin
Myles was made the “little mayor” of the female dormitory at the Dumaguete City District Jail owing to her being the longest-staying detainee at the facility.
When she first arrived, there were over a hundred persons deprived of liberty (PDLs). Two people would share a single bed, while the rest would sleep on the floor.
Myles told Rappler that she was offered space on a bed by an older PDL. Her relationship with her fellow PDLs can be described as something similar to being “sisters” and her peers there now call her “Ate Myles.”
On most days, she spends her time reading books, striving to finish one or two once a month.
Through the years, Myles and her peers would play volleyball, enact small musical productions inside the facility, and help teach their younger co-PDLs things they learned in school.
Prior to all of this, her fondness for education had garnered her multiple scholarship grants in esteemed educational institutions.
Myles pursued Mass Communication at UP Cebu. As a student, she joined student competitions like ABS-CBN’s Campus Patrol and interned at the regional station of the news outlet.
She was also a student activist, taking an active role in immersions with peasant communities and study groups about the political situation of the country, according to Anakbayan UP Cebu.
Clik here to view.
“My heart just won’t let me stop from going to the communities…to talk to them, to go and listen to them,” Myles said in Cebuano.
Which is why, when she was offered by Aninaw Productions to pursue a news assignment with the farmers of Luyang, she could not refuse.
The strength needed to love
“It is pain and love each day,” veteran journalist Grace Cantal-Albasin, Myles’ mother, told Rappler.
Grace was diagnosed with cervical cancer in May 2018, only two months after Myles was detained. She migrated from their home in Bukidnon province, Northern Mindanao, to Dumaguete City to ensure that her daughter would not succumb to loneliness.
She had endured this, along with the continuous scathing remarks her daughter and family received in the almost seven years of Myles’ extended confinement.
Despite this, Grace’s love for her daughter proved strong enough to help her fight through the tumor growth and the hatred directed at them.
“We make choices, we do them, we face the consequences. When we go through it, we do it together,” Grace said.
Grace is never alone. Lloyd, her husband, often accompanies her when they visit their daughter, almost always belting out into song when the mother-daughter conversations become too serious.
Whether it is lyrics from The Carpenters or verses from classic Filipino musical hits, any time is an opportunity to have a duet with his daughter.
When he is at home, he is busy working on their farm, planting coconut trees and other seedlings in hopes of a good harvest for the season.
Lloyd firmly believes that his daughter will be free one day.
“When she comes home, I want her to see how much greener the farm is and how much everything has changed,” Lloyd told Rappler on February 8.
Heartbreak and vows
Myles said that she has assigned herself the role of “family sponge” as a way to absorb the pain her loved ones feel on a daily basis. She feels that it is the most she could do for them.
She shared that she sometimes wonders how long she can keep fighting, and how many more hardships she must go through before her struggle finally ends.
She said she would never wish to put another person through what her family has had to suffer, pushing aside thoughts of having her own family one day for the dream of becoming a lawyer for the people.
“Na-quota na ko sa heartbreak (I’ve had my quota on heartbreak),” Myles said.
Meanwhile, her younger sister, Marley, promised to become a doctor who would provide accessible healthcare to political prisoners.
“The elderly [detainees] die from tuberculosis, pneumonia, because they can’t immediately be brought to the hospital or get medicine…there are times when they would infect each other at the facility…COVID-19 was the worst scare for our family since my sister was asthmatic,” Marley said.
For the younger sister, there is no worse feeling than having to visit Myles and then not being able to go home with her afterwards.
“It hits close to home. It is painful that my sister and the detainees do not seem to have a right to health,” Marley added.
One day, Marley said, her older sister would be free, and when that day comes, she vowed that she would cling on to Myles and never let go.
Myles knew this about her sister, too. Grace and Lloyd said they have no doubt they would be able to return to their home as a complete family and can only wonder how they will make up for lost time.
Before the end of visiting hours at the detention center, Myles embraced her parents and told Rappler, “When you endure the pain, there is growth.”
Clik here to view.
– Rappler.com