For Families of Desaparecidos, Hope Springs Eternal

The Ancheta family filed a petition of habeas corpus before the Court of Appeals in 2007 but their request was denied because the court said they were not able to present sufficient evidence that could pinpoint to the military as the perpetrator of the abduction.

Elizabeth Calubad, wife of desaparecido Rogelio and mother of another desaparecido Gabriel, said that she already tried all possible means to uncover the truth about her husband and son’s disappearance. “But I still did not find an answer,” she said. “But through Raymond Manalo’s testimony, at least I am certain that the military is behind their abductions.”

Manalo was the Bulacan farmer who said he was abducted, tortured and imprisoned for 18 months by the military under then Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, known as “The Butcher” for the trail of blood he left behind in the provinces that he was assigned. Manalo later escaped and went on to testify in court and before the UN Human Rights Council about his ordeal and those of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno, two activists who, according to Manalo, was abducted and tortured as well by soldiers.

For Elizabeth Calubad, the disappearance of her husband and son has been a live-changing experience. “My son was not an activist. But since he was with his father, the military took him, too,” she told the crowd in front of the Bustillos Church. “That is why I am here, now an activist myself.”

Elizabeth said she had been displaced from their home in Quezon province because of the military surveillance on their family; they are now living in Manila. All that she has now, she said, is the determination to find out what happened to her husband and son and the hope of finding them one of these days.

According to Desaparecidos, 201 individuals, mostly activists, have been abducted and remain missing since 2001. The first desaparecidos under Arroyo were farmers Rodrigo Doria and Onofre Diaz who were abducted in Lumban, Laguna, on April 20, 2001, just three months after the second People Power that installed Arroyo to the presidency.

Since then, the abductions never stopped, peaking in 2006 with 162 desaparecidos. Desaparecidos, the group, attributed this to the nearing deadline at the time of Oplan Bantay Laya 1, the regime’s counter-insurgency program that targets not just armed guerrillas but those who are merely suspected of being communists or sympathizers. The program does not distinguish between an armed revolutionary and a legal, above-ground activists. This, according to human-rights groups here and abroad as well as the United Nations, is the main factor behind the worsening human-rights situation in the Philippines today.

“These hundreds of bells ring out a warning to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: her immunity will soon be over and we victims and families of victims of enforced disappearance will get the justice we deserve,” said Lorena Santos, deputy secretary-general of Desaparecidos, whose father, Leo Velasco, was abducted in 2007 in Cagayan De Oro City and remains missing. “She will pay the price for her crimes against the people,” Lorena said.

Mary Guy Portajada, the secretary-general of Desaparecidos, fears that the Arroyo regime would intensify its abuses as it tries to meet its 2010 deadline to defeat the four-decade-old communist movement.

“The human rights violations of the Arroyo regime became sporadic when the international community began to put pressure on Arroyo to put a stop to the political killings and disappearances. But we fear that violations will start rising rapidly again,” said Portajada, whose father was also a desaparecido.

“This is why we are calling on the people to be vigilant,” Portajada said. “Let us ring bells as a warning to this fascist government that we are watching.” (Bulatlat.com)