Statement on the International Day of the Disappeared
Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human Rights (PCTFHR)

MISSING BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

30 August, 2007

On this day, more so than any other, we remember the men and women who have been seized by the military and other agents of the Philippine state without recourse to their families or lawyers.

We remember the 198 victims of enforced disappearances since Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came into power in 2001.  We also remember over a thousand men and women who were disappeared under the Marcos dictatorship and successive governments.  According to the United Nations, enforced disappearances occur when people are forcibly arrested, detained, abducted or deprived of their liberty by the military or elements acting with the support or consent, direct or indirect, of the state.  This is followed by the refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of these victims which denies them the basic protection of the law to which every man and woman, irrespective of guilt or innocence, is entitled.

The Arroyo government’s continued use of enforced disappearances remains one of the most cruel forms of human rights violations because the grim possibilities of torture and death for the victims are real, while closure for the families is almost impossible.  As a systematic form of repression against the people, it conveniently hides its victims, whether alive or dead, while the perpetrators go free.  Just like extra-judicial killings, the use of enforced disappearances is meant to terrorize legitimate people’s organizations and punish critical and legitimate dissent.

The disappeared are leaders and members of people’s organizations and progressive partylist groups like Luisa Posa Dominado, Danilo Arado and Joseph Jonas Burgos, Jr; farmers, like Antonino Roda, Eric Buhain and Julius Sango, and workers suspected of being supporters or members of New People’s Army guerrillas and the National Democratic Front.  They are students like Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, whose abductions were witnessed by local residents.  They also include consultants and members of the peace talks of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), like Prudencio Calubid, Celina Palma and Abner Hizarsa, whose security and protection should have been guaranteed and respected under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) entered into between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the NDFP.

There is good reason to believe that some may have been killed and their bodies hidden.  Or that some of them are indefinitely and secretly detained, or held incommunicado, in secret prisons or hospitals or military camps.  There are testimonies from victims lucky to have been “surfaced” either in prison, or sent home after being coerced into becoming military assets.

The Supreme Court of the Philippines should keep true to its pledge give remedy to victims, and protect victims of enforced disappearances. They may be already free but they are still in danger.

As Filipinos and Canadians here in Canada, we call on the Arroyo government and the military to surface the disappeared.  We demand that Arroyo open all military camps, detachments and safe houses to searches by the families of the disappeared.

We remind the Arroyo government that enforced disappearances, torture and extra-judicial killings are violations, not only of its own Constitution which guarantees human rights to its citizens, but also that of international covenants on human rights and articles of war to which the Philippine government is a signatory, including that of the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

On this day, more so than any other, we reach out to the families and friends of the disappeared who continue to hope against hope that their disappeared would be surfaced and that justice will be served.

We urge all overseas Filipinos and peace-loving Canadians to join in genuine solidarity with the victims of enforced disappearances and human rights violations in the Philippines. This September 2007, the Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human Rights is calling on Canadians to join the Filipino people in a “September of Solidarity” – a month dedicated to action in support of the Filipino people in their legitimate struggle against enforced disappearances, political killings, and human rights violations.

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