WATCH: Baby River’s funeral is surrounded by jail guards; the activist mother was handcuffed

MANILA (UPDATE) – Instead of a solemn ceremony, a tense scene occurred at the funeral of baby River — the daughter of activist and political prisoner Reina Mae Nasino — at Manila North Cemetery on Friday.

In the photos and videos of the funeral obtained by ABS-CBN News, I see many jail guards of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology who are camouflaged and even have weapons surrounding Baby River’s coffin.

It will be recalled that the Nasino family and their lawyers said they would have wished to have River’s bed “private”, contrary to the so-called “overkill” and battalion-like number of authorities guarding the vigil on Wednesday.

According to the Karapatan group, which had a representative at the funeral, Nasino’s mother begged her to remove her handcuffs in the middle of the funeral but she was not granted.

In some photos of Nasino, you can see that she is having a hard time wiping her tears because apart from handcuffs, she is also wearing full PPE.

Eventually the mourners sang “Bayan Ko.”

It will be recalled that instead of 3 consecutive days of furlough or temporary release from Nasino’s jail, the court suspended it for 6 hours in 2 days due to the request of the Manila City Jail.

November 2019 when Nasino was arrested in Tondo, Manila — part of the alleged crackdown on the left. She was charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

To this day, Nasino insists she is innocent.