ON THE International Day of the Disappeared three days ago, Aug. 30, this paper reported on the call of human rights groups in Iloilo for the surfacing of victims of involuntary disappearances, and specifically activists Maria Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado who have been missing for more than 14 years already.
On April 12, 2007 while travelling home from Antique, Luisa and Nilo became victims of enforced disappearance in Barangay Cabanbanan, Oton, Iloilo. Their family and friends have been looking for them all these years, including holding State forces liable.
While the killing of a loved one is painful, the involuntary disappearance of one is even more excruciating. Victims’ families endure years of uncertainty, and are therefore unable to grieve. This is emotional and psychological torture.
The Philippines has a long history of enforced disappearances, numbering over two thousand since the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos when martial law was enacted in 1972. Forty years after, in 2012 President Benigno Aquino III approved Republic Act 10353, the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012. The law primarily targets state agents and officials who confine or arrest individuals without proper process and detain those individuals outside the law’s protection.
But like any other law, Republic Act 10353 must be enforced effectively to serve its purpose. For example, the anti-torture law was enacted in 2009 yet but human rights violations involving torture continue despite the law prohibiting and criminalizing it.
According to the “Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance” proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Dec. 18, 1992, an enforced disappearance occurs when “persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”
Republic Act 10353 is considered a milestone as it is the first law of its kind in Asia. But is it being taken seriously and implemented?
