MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 19, 2014) – A Filipino group has criticized the Aquino government for its failure to fully impose the Anti-Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance Law, saying the number of cases of enforced disappearance is steadily clmibing.
Lorena Santos, Secretary-General of Families of Desaparecidos for Justice, said another farmer-activist Romulo de la Cruz was reported missing since February 28 in Roxas City in Isabela province.
She said Dela Cruz is the sixth victim of enforced disappearance since the law was enacted in December 2012. “Benigno Aquino should also apologize to the public for the persistence of this heinous crime despite the law,” Santos said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Citing a report by the human rights group Karapatan, Santos said there are now 20 victims of enforced disappearances under the Aquino regime.
Dela Cruz, a member of the local farmers’ organization Agbiag Matusalem Association-Roxas Isabela (AMA-RI), affiliated with a progressive Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon iti (Dagami) based in Isabela, was reported missing by his family.
She said Dela Cruz’s son and relatives, with the assistance of AMA-RI members, immediately reported the abduction to the San Manuel police station.
The police inspected the site of the incident and declared that the case is outside their jurisdiction because Dagami has several rival organizations.
“Where else will victims and their families seek help when government authorities are not cooperating? The authorities don’t seem to know the law,” Santos said.
“The Aquino government takes pride on the Anti-Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance Law as the first in Asia. Yet, not one perpetrator has been prosecuted. Not even the poster boy of impunity, Gen. Jovito Palparan who was already served with a warrant of arrest more than two years ago,” Santos added.
Coming from his son’s wedding, Dela Cruz was driving a motorcycle together with one of the wedding sponsors while his son Romy and his wife were on another motorcycle behind the farmer when a van suddenly blocked their path and a man, whose face was covered with a handkerchief, alighted from the vehicle and seized the victim.
The man said he was a member of the National Bureau of Investigation.
Santos said the Aquino government, despite the anti-enforced disappearance law, has not yet signed and ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, an instrument of the United Nations to prevent enforced disappearances. The ICCPED was adopted in 2006 by the UN General Assembly.
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