Ending enforced disappearances
Approximately 183 citizens have disappeared since 2001, according to human-right groups that keep count; about 1,900 since 1973. Enforced disappearances continued during the administrations of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada. Who carried out the abductions? What happened to the victims? Were the perpetrators ever been prosecuted and punished?Leftist organizations have blamed elements of the military and the police since most of the victims were persons known to have socialist or communist leanings. They said they have witnesses and evidence to back their claim. The Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police have denied the charge. The military said the New People’s Army, the Abu Sayyaf or the Moro secessionists could have had a hand in the abductions.
The International Convention for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearance defines involuntary disappearance as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence by the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”
The latest abduction being pinned on the military is that of Jonas Burgos, a farmer and a training specialist for a national organization of peasants. It has been three months since a group of men seized him at a shopping mall in Quezon City. The military has denied involvement. The PNP on Tuesday produced three “communists” who said at a press briefing that the NPA abducted the son of journalist Jose Burgos.
Still missing are Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado, missing since April 12; Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, two UP students said to have been abducted by the military on June 26, 2006, and other students, workers, farmers, lawyers and labor organizers identified with left-of-center organizations.
The search for the desaparacidos continues while efforts to stop abductions by the military, police and enemies of the state intensify. In what could be a giant step, 131 congressmen, crossing party lines, have introduced a bill that defines involuntary disappearance and prescribes sanctions on perpetrators and accomplices.
House Bill 2263, “an act defining and penalizing the crime of enforced or involuntary disappearance,” metes life imprisonment for persons involved in such crime. The bill describes five categories of involvement.
It seeks the rehabilitation of the victims and prescribes compensation to their families. The measure aims to provide protection to victims, families, legal counsel, human-rights organizations, the media and witnesses of involuntary disappearance.
The principal author, Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, said that he phenomenon of enforced disappearance has largely remained undefined, unchecked and unpunished in the country. No specific offense related to it has been recognized despite its systematic occurrence in the past 30 years, he added.
The vigor with which the administration and opposition lawmakers supported HB 2263 is comforting. We hope the Senate, under President Manny Villar, would pass its version soon and a conference committee would work on a unified bill for the signature of President Arroyo.
The unabated kidnapping of Filipino citizens—whether socialists, nationalists or communists—is a blot on our democracy and system of justice. It mocks our pretensions to law and order and claims to development with social conscience.
Any law protecting human rights and the safety of citizens, however, will fail unless the Establishment—political, police and military—accepts left-of-center thought as an integral part of the body politic and that socialism or any ideology close to it is not poison but an expression of legitimate political action, an option to the conventional wisdoms about the political economy.
The Magsaysay Awards
It’s the late Ramon Magsaysay’s 100th birthday anniversary. Among Filipino presidents, he has no peer in honesty and devotion to duty.
The nation honors him by conferring the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation’s Award on seven distinguished Asians for outstanding service to humanity.
The Foundation says “the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay awardees are collectively advancing causes to improve lives and correct unjust social conditions across Asia.” They will receive their awards in fitting ceremonies today, joining the 256 previous awardees in a distinct hall of fame.
We join the Filipino people and the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation in congratulating:
The revered former Senate president Jovito R. Salonga, the awardee for government service, for the integrity and substance of his long public career in service to democracy and good government.
Kim Sun Tae of Korea, the awardee for public service, for helping his fellow blind and visually impaired in South Korea.
Mahabir Pun of Nepal, the awardee for community service, for his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal, particularly in the villages.
Tang Xiyang of China, the awardee for peace and international understanding, for guiding China to meet its mounting environmental crisis.
Palagummi Sainath of India, the awardee for journalism, literature and creative communication, for his commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national consciousness.
Chen Guangcheng of China, the awardee for emergent leadership, for leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law. And,
Chung To of China, another awardee for emergent leadership, for his proactive response to AIDS in China.
