Family worries about health of young Baltimore activist arrested in the Philippines

Vivian Pasion wants to hear her wife’s voice again. She has no idea when that will be.

Human rights advocates are sounding alarms over the detainment of Baltimore resident Christina Pasion in the Philippines. She had traveled to her native country in Southeast Asia last December as part of an exposure trip coordinated by Migrante USA and Migrante International, which advocate for Filipino migrants.

The Philippine National Police arrested the 27-year-old community advocate, along with local organizer Binay Serrano, in the city of Cabuyao on July 30. Pasion and Serrano were seeking medical treatment when they were taken into custody, according to the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.

The Philippine government said Pasion and Serrano were arrested for their alleged involvement with the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Pasion’s loved ones, as well as Migrante International, deny that Pasion is involved with the NPA.

Human Rights Watch reports that since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in 2022, human rights violations “have continued in the country largely unabated, including arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by the security forces.”

Pasion is the second person in the Baltimore region to be detained in the Philippines in the past year, and her arrest has drawn local attention. Dozens of people gathered near McKeldin Plaza to protest Pasion’s arrest on Thursday and to call for her release. Her loved ones organized a letter-writing campaign and reached out to public officials for help.

“My office is in touch with Christina’s family,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat and Maryland’s senior senator, said in a statement. “We have reached out to the State Department on their behalf as we look into this matter.”

The State Department has not responded to a request for comment from The Banner.

Pasion’s family is also concerned about her health, as they have little information about what kind of treatment she and Serrano were receiving. The day before the arrest, a clash between the Philippine National Police and the New People’s Army resulted in the death of three NPA fighters and the forced evacuation of residents, according to Migrante International.

Another Marylander, Chantal Anicoche, disappeared for days after the Armed Forces of the Philippines deployed bombs onto the island of Mindoro on New Year’s Day, in what the Philippine government said was an attack against the longest-running rebellion in Asia. Chapters of Filipino advocacy groups across the United States organized protests in front of Philippine embassies, and Anakbayan UMBC, a local chapter of a national youth organization, hosted a community event demanding Anicoche’s return. Anicoche was released in late January.

The Baltimore Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines is holding a solidarity supper on Sunday at The Lot to press for Pasion and Serrano’s release. Frankie Jackson, an organizer with the group and close friend of the Pasions, said her loved ones are in contact with Christina Pasion’s legal team.

“We’ve been trying to keep her spirits up,” they said.

‘Something she had to do’

Vivian and Christina Pasion met on their first day of high school. Vivian asked Christina out the Friday before Memorial Day, so that if she got rejected she would have three days to recover. They have been together for more than a decade and got married in 2024.

The couple settled in the city’s Waverly neighborhood, within walking distance of the local farmers market and community garden. Vivian started working as a lab technician, while Christina did advocacy work for the Filipino migrant community. Christina was instrumental in building relationships with people who were being intimidated to self-deport during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Vivian said.

Anicoche’s disappearance, followed by the death of two Americans in the country’s Negros Occidental province region in April, terrified Vivian, she said.

Christina and Vivian talked at length about the Filipino-American’s desire to travel to her motherland. There were several difficult, teary conversations in which they confronted the possibility that Christina could be detained, harmed or killed. The Philippine government has a history of forcibly disappearing and “red- tagging” activists — identifying them as communist or insurgent supporters, according to the State Department.

Christina wanted to understand the factors that force many Filipinos to leave their country and wanted to work alongside rural indigenous communities seeking to protect their ancestral land, Vivian said. It was something that Christina had wanted to do for a long time.

“I knew that was something that she had to do,” Vivian said. “I knew that it was something that is so integral to who she is as a person.”