Continuing the life advocacy of ‘Sister Stella L,’ 50 years on

Mike De Leon’s multi-awarded 1984 film “Sister Stella L” portrays a social activist nun who serves as guidance counselor to abused women and unwed mothers, until she finds herself picketing with laborers during the Marcos regime. The movie’s main writer, Pete Lacaba, was inspired by his experience as a political prisoner with a real-life nun from the Religious of the Good Shepherd (RGS, the nuns known for their delectable Baguio ube jams).

Her name is Sister Pilar L. Verzosa, who founded Pro-Life Philippines in 1975 through the Good Shepherd Maternity Home, where my wife Deni Rose Bernardo and I volunteered for about a semester after college as media relations officers and counselors. It was a privilege to be trained by Sister Verzosa herself on life-building skills and life-affirmative choices. Her motto was "no wasted life, no wasted resources." She could relate to young sweethearts as she would share her memories of her former fiancee before she decided to enter the convent. Sister Verzosa specialized in medical care as a registered nurse who topped the Nursing Board and had the political connections to expand her programs as a scion of the influential Verzosa clan in Ilocos Sur.

As a human rights advocate, Sister Verzosa worked with the socio-political Jesuits which sometimes got her into trouble with more traditional Catholic circles. The organization advances a wholistic “Consistent Life Ethics,” with the right to life as the most fundamental human right to be protected at all stages, circumstances, and phases, from the inception of human life until its natural end. This right is non-derogable and may not be waived or contracted away; in its core is the essential value of human life itself. So along with the hot-button issues (anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-euthanasia), comes the struggle with the daily concerns and situations of men and women for their rights to well-being, centered on family values, support and care.

Sister Verzosa herself used to rescue and talk out women from prostitution, braving the alleys of Manila by night. She got arrested, harassed, and temporarily imprisoned with Lacaba during Martial Law after giving a lecture on labor rights to communities in the boondocks and was red-tagged as "Commander Laura," hence the moniker "Sister Stella L." After the People Power Revolution, Pro-Life worked to enshrine in the 1987 Constitution the protection of human life from conception and the abolition of the death penalty, and the Philippines was instrumental in drafting Preamble 9 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which calls for the child’s “special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”

Pro-Life Philippines was back then the only viable 24/7 hotline for abused women, women in crisis, and single mothers where they could find confidential support and assistance, including prenatal checkups and resources, ultrasound monitoring, and information about pregnancy, maternity, adoption, parenting, and livelihood programs. It has evolved to provide counselling for couples and families including fertility awareness (natural family planning methods) and to comfort those contemplating suicide, or have mental health concerns, or are in critical life phases or situations such as the elderly and persons with disabilities.

Sister Verzosa’s organization launched the Festival of Twins, the Rock for Life with youth bands such as Callalily and Imago, the Motorcade for Life, the Cinevita Fim Festival with UST’s The Varsitarian, the March for Life, and the leading Buhay Partylist. The new office in now located in Quiapo--right where illegal abortifacients are being marketed and abortion clinics clandestinely operate, to empower women to be able to choose life for both herself and her child.

Sister Verzosa passed away from brain aneurysm while giving a seminar in a school, and the office of Pro-Life Philippines has since been rebranded as “Sister Verzosa Prolife Center” to carry the unique brand and vision of “Sister Stella L” who gave her life to save lives, from womb to tomb.