EDITORIAL

‘Disappeared persons’ 1,193 and counting

Thirty women missing: These are the numbers of abducted women who remain missing since Gloria Arroyo came into power, according to the Center for Women's Resources, a research and training institute.

Cases of enforced disappearances, aside from the extra-judicial killings, remain unsolved by the government. There are 1,193 victims of enforced disappearances from 2001 to June 2008. Most of the abducted victims are human rights advocates, community organizers and leaders.

"Enforced disappearance is a clandestine repressive strategy committed by public authorities to spread terror within the society. It turns human being into a non-being, denying the right of persons to exist or to have an identity," said Jojo Guan, CWR executive director. “Aside from being victims themselves, women also bear severe suffering as they wait eternally for the return of their loved ones. The constant uncertainty about the whereabouts of their loved ones causes torture for mothers, daughters, sisters of the disappeared person."

Elizabeth Calubad had been looking for her husband Rogelio and son Gabriel since 2006 after the two were forced into a van by armed men. Lorena Santos has been searching in the different military camps since 2007 for her father Leo Velasco, who was among the 50 individuals charged with rebellion by the Justice Department and was abducted in Cagayan de Oro City.

Dee Ayroso has also been hopping from one camp to another since 2002 in search of her husband who was reportedly abducted by soldiers from the 71st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. Ghay Portajada has been searching since 1987 for her father who was the Coca Cola workers' union president and was abducted in Makati.

Guan said families try to obtain even the smallest scrap of news but their inquiries with the authorities have in most cases borne no fruit. They are usually told that their relatives are unknown to the authorities, contradicting the eye-witness accounts of the abduction.

The United Nations recognizes enforced disappearance as an international crime against humanity and marks August 30 as the International Day of the Disappeared. This year indicates the 25th year of commemorating the cases of the desaparecidos.

The campaign against enforced disappearance should involve everyone. The feeling of insecurity spawned by enforced disappearance is not limited to the close relatives of the disappeared, but it also reaches the communities to which the disappeared person belongs and the society as a whole. Government agencts involved in such disappearances should be held accountable for their misdeeds.