FOUR days ago, August 30, was the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances as declared by the United Nations. The annual observance is a reminder to us of all those who were forcibly disappeared by agents of the state that ironically pledged to protect citizens from human rights violations.
We pay tribute to all the desaparecidos who, plucked from the bosom of their families, their communities and the greater society, are utterly deprived of their right to life and liberty.
The severity and magnitude of the crime and the imperative to put this scourge to an end had prompted the UN designate a day for it. Such recognition by the UN, which followed the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, is a moral and political victory of organizations of families of the disappeared.
Sadly, the phenomenon of enforced disappearances persists. The Philippines has more than 600 outstanding cases of enforced disappearances as per 2021 report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) which, despite underreporting, is the highest in Southeast Asia spanning the Marcos dictatorship to the succeeding administrations of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Benigno Aquino lll, and Rodrigo Duterte.
Yes, from Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s bloody martial rule and up to now, hundreds of people – farmers, workers, activists, human rights defenders, among others – were forcibly taken and disappeared by state forces in their attempts to stifle dissent. All of them remain missing to this day.
There is utter lack of justice to the desaparecidos in the Philippines and victims of other human rights violations. Without justice, enforced disappearances are doomed to be repeated.
All of the families of the desaparecidos still don’t know what happened to their loved ones. Some, especially those whose relatives were abducted during the Marcos dictatorship, already died without seeing a glimmer of justice nor having even a slightest hint to their loved ones’ whereabouts.
Despite the enactment of Republic Act 10353 or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act in 2012, what good is this law if it can’t punish those who perpetrate enforced disappearances?
