ILOILO City – As activists across the globe marked the International Day of the Disappeared on Aug. 30, the monument for martial law victims at Plaza Libertad stands as a defiant reminder of lives lost and unresolved cases of enforced disappearances — even as the historic square undergoes multimillion-peso renovations.
The memorial pays tribute to hundreds of desaparecidos (victims of enforced disappearance) from Western Visayas, among them activists Maria Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado, who were abducted by armed men on April 12, 2007, in Oton, Iloilo, and remain missing 17 years later.
“The monument for Maria Luisa and Nilo was built to recognize their sacrifices for the people and to ensure that what was done to them will never be forgotten. We continue to demand from the national government a resolution to their disappearance so that such atrocities will not happen again. At the same time, we bring these human rights violations before the international community as the culture of impunity persists in the Philippines,” said Elmer Forro, spokesperson of cause-oriented group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Panay.
First erected in 2004, the monument was taken down in 2020 during redevelopment works at Plaza Libertad but was reinstalled and re-inaugurated on July 25, 2022, coinciding with the first State of the Nation Address of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
The re-inauguration gathered members of the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) and younger activists, who also displayed a large tarpaulin bearing the names of more than 350 victims from Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo province, and Iloilo City who were killed, disappeared, or persecuted during martial law.
For rights groups, the return of the monument is more than symbolic — it is a bulwark against historical revisionism and an enduring space of grief and resistance for families of victims./PN
