Groups to Marcos: Surface activists abducted by CIDG

  Capuyan, De Jesus case

Various indigenous peoples advocates and human rights organizations led a demonstration at the Philippine National Police headquarters last week to demand the surfacing of missing activists Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo de Jesus.
    It has been over two weeks since Capuyan and De Jesus were abducted on April 28 in Taytay, Rizal, they said.
    Based on information gathered from search missions, groups said it was confirmed that Capuyan and De Jesus were taken by “operatives who introduced themselves as members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).” 
    “These recent abductions of rights defenders under Marcos Jr.’s administration are a spitting image of his father’s atrocities during the dark years of martial law,” said Beverly Longid, national convenor of Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas, a national alliance of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations.     “Before Dexter and Bazoo’s disappearance, IP rights advocates Mary Joyce Lizada and Arnulfo Aumentado also went missing before being found in the hands of the AFP at Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal.”
    Various protest actions were held in the Cordillera and NCR demanding the safe surfacing of the two, but several Rizal-based law enforcement, security, and intelligence agencies have denied holding the two in custody.
    A press conference was held last May 10 at the Karapatan national office, where family members of the missing advocates expressed their concern alongside representatives from various indigenous peoples and human rights organizations.
    In Baguio City that same day, other family members alongside the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) conducted a simultaneous search mission in Camp Allen and Camp Dangwa, following the earlier search missions in Rizal.
    A complaint and a request for assistance in the search were also forwarded by the families to the Cordillera regional office of the Commission on Human Rights.
    “This cover-up has made us all the more eager to find Dexter and Bazoo. We urge Mr. Marcos and his subordinates to surface the two,” Longid added. Under the provisions of RA 10353, state security agents and government officials who are found to be perpetrators of enforced disappearances shall be held liable and punished by the law.
    Dexter, an Igorot, and Bazoo, an IP rights advocate, are both trailblazers in the promotion of indigenous peoples rights in the Cordillera.
“    As we continue our call to surface Dexter and Bazoo, we will never forget to hold the Marcos Jr. administration accountable in the activists’ disappearances,” Longid said.