Yet she is still working there at the age of 88 and her book, 'The Men In My Life,' was able to get the death penalty abolished in the country

COSTA MESA, CA - (ANS)- It was a day that Olga Robertson, known to her prisoners at the maximum security prison of New Bilibid in Muntinlupa, Philippines, as "Mommy Olga" will never forget.

In an extraordinary interview that Robertson, now 88, recently gave me for my Front Page Radio program, she described the shocking event that took place in late November 1978, and almost took her life and those of some friends.

"Pastor Chuck Smith had gone there and then two days later these three people ---missionaries and friends of mine -- came and they were preaching the Word and as they were coming out of the building they were attacked by four prisoners with knives," she recalled.

"They knew that my van was in the prison grounds and they ordered me to go and get it and then come around and they got the hostages into the back of my van and then ordered me drive out through the gate and they had the knives at their throats.

"One of the prisoners jumped in the front of my van and when I was by the gate trying to get into the vehicle, he put the knife in my side and he wanted me to obey his orders. I held the knife and pushed it away and said to him, 'I can't drive that way,' so he didn't do anything.

"When I came to the main gate and all the guards were standing there and the superintendent was coming in at the back of my van, I quickly pulled the brake, opened the door and jumped out and the prisoner jumped at me with the knife, but it the guards were there and they shot him. His blood was on my uniform as he fell dead.

"Then, the guards continued shooting and the lady got some stray bullets in her leg and the other inmate stabbed the husband twice, but then the guard shot and killed him and soon all the inmates were dead and the missionaries were rushed to the hospital."

Olga took a deep breath after recalling such violence, and went on to say, "Paul, one of the missionaries came back the next day and said, 'I want to go in,' and I thought, 'What? You were attacked there.' He said, 'I want to go in to get over my fear,' and a guard who heard him said, 'Here, take my gun,' but he replied, 'I don't need your gun.'

"So we went into my chapel in the prison and a death convict who was now a born-again Christian, welcomed him and Paul put his arm around him and walked with him back to the gate. So he got over that fear. I was told when these missionaries went back to the States."

The New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, Philippines, is Olga Robertson's second home and is the main insular penitentiary designed to house the prison population of the Philippines. It is maintained by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) under the Philippine Department of Justice. As of October 2004, it has an inmate population of 16,747. And now Olga Robertson has been working there for 54 years.

During the interview, I was able to learn more about this amazing and inspiring woman, who has written a book called "The Men In My Life," (Promise Publishing) to which Pastor Chuck Smith supplied a forward to. (I was one of the founders of this publishing company at the time.)

"My dad was from Lebanon and my mom from Singapore," she said. "He was a businessman and he traveled and when he went to the Philippines that's where all of the children were born except one of my brothers was born in Singapore."

How did you get the name Robertson?

"Because I was very innocent and my dad never allowed us three girls to go out with any boys," she explained. "We couldn't have dates, so when I began working at a US Air Force base, I met one of the guys there called Robertson and he invited me out and we had an affair and I was so innocent and I didn't really know what was happening.

"I was about 23 years of age at the time, and he took me to the Justice of the Peace and that's where we were married. I was married for just one day and then he left for the States. Before I knew it, I found out that I was going to have a baby, though as it happened that I had twins whose father had left the country."

Where you a Christian at the time?

"No, I wasn't, but my brother was more of a Christian," she said. "I didn't know the Lord."

"So you got off to a pretty shaky start there, so how eventually was this turned around and how did you find the Lord?" I asked her.

"It was when I attended one of the churches in the Philippines and I heard the Gospel and that was the first time I accepted the Lord," she said. "But then later on, after I moved to the United States to be with my twin daughters, I heard about Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. A friend of mine took me there and introduced me to Pastor Chuck Smith who told me, 'We'd love to have you,' and once I started going there I couldn't stop. I loved the chapel, but I love the Lord above everything else."

By this time, Olga had already started her prison ministry back in the Philippines so traveled there regularly to continue her work with "The Men In My Life."

"Although I was afraid of men, God gave me a peace in my heart to work with these men in the prison," she said. "I didn't know their crimes and I thought these were ordinary men. But later on, as a missionary to the prison, I found out about many of their crimes and I kept a notebook and pictures of them and discovered what they had done, but it didn't bother me."

I then told Olga that I had once visited the prison during a reporting trip to the Philippines and found it to be a scary place. So, I asked her how her work began there.

"I started first with the children of the prisoners on the reservation and then I was given permission to go in the prison itself and held a service on the prison grounds," she said. "Then, when the prisoners started coming and showing interest, I got permission then to build a chapel. Actually, it was the prisoners who built the chapel for me.

"So God was good and the chapel was really packed out. Of course there were other groups who then starting to come in and also work with the prisoners."

She said that when she first began her work 54 years ago, there was about 10,000 prisoners incarcerated there, and the population continues to grow. Eventually she was allowed to visit the prisoners on death row.

"I would go first into the cells and then I to the dormitory and these were also death row," said Olga. "But then, when one of the leaders got saved and gave his heart to the Lord, then he would let me go in and talk with the men who were working and they would stop their work to listen to the Gospel."

She then recounted the story of Billy, who was due to be executed.

"Billy gave his heart to the Lord and was about to die in the electric chair and he sat there with two others that he had led to the Lord and the priest, who had come to see them, said, 'You are Catholics' and one of them said, 'No Father, we have accepted Jesus and we willing to die in the electric chair.' Then Billy, when he sat in the electric chair, told the Lord, 'I'm ready to go. I know you have prepared for me a place in heaven,' and with that the current went through his body and he went to be with the Lord and so did the other two. They were ready."

Olga said she has many stories like this that are in her book.

But if that wasn't enough, Olga Robertson helped to make history in the Philippines when on April 15, 2006, then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment in what is believed to be the largest ever commutation of death sentences in modern times. Four days later, President Arroyo marked as urgent legislation to repeal the death penalty.

By abolishing the death penalty, Philippines joined the worldwide trend toward abolition of the death penalty and became the 125th nation to become abolitionist in law or practice.

So I asked Olga what was her role in that.

"When I first heard the news, I couldn't believe it," she told me. "I had sent my book, 'The Men In My Life,' to the president and told her about the men who had given their hearts to the Lord inside the prison.

"Then one day, when I was visiting the prison, I was amazed to see her talking to the death convicts and the director was there as well and the president was telling them that she was going to take out the death penalty and it was going to be 'life' instead.

"Naturally, they were very glad, thinking that now one else was going die in the electric chair. Some of them had been there thirty years and if you go to what was death row today, you won't see what you used to see. These men now have new hope. Many even have little stores in the prison grounds where they're selling candies and cookies and gum.

"If you go around the grounds now, you'll see these little stores everywhere and even restaurants. Their wives are coming in and cooking and selling food to the other inmates as they don't want the prison food and sometimes they even give that to the dogs that are in the place.

"It's so different. I can't believe this because when I first entered, it was a prison, just prison."

I then asked Olga why, after all these years, she has retired from her prison work.

"Because I'm burdened for them and I love them," she said. "It is such a joy to see the new life in the born-again Christians in the prison and also to witness how trustworthy they now are."

I concluded the interview by asking Olga what her favorite Scripture is?
She smiled and quoted from Proverbs, 5-6, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (KJV)

For Olga Robertson, at the grand age of 88, she is still doing that as he continues her work in the most dangerous prison in the Philippines. May she continue to do so for many more years to come.

Her book is now out of print, but can be found in a search of the Internet. You can hear a short clip from my interview with Olga Robertson on my Window on the World third podcast with my son Peter Wooding at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVxC5OhVF-8&feature=youtu.be

Note: I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.