Justice for victims of enforced disappearances! Justice for all victims of human rights violations!

A Press Statement of the DESAPARECIDOS on International Day of the Disappeared
August 30, 2006

Of the 181 victims of enforced disappearance since Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed power in 2001, not one has surfaced nor was taken full accountability for by their perpetrators. Worse, the government dismissed the urgency and gravity of the matter by hastily releasing statements that the missing persons were victims of an alleged purging of the CPP-NPA.

Such unfounded declarations are greatly insulting for us families of the disappeared, firstly because it belittles the cruelty of enforced disappearance to both the missing and those that were left behind. Second, because it maliciously implies that the victims were members of the CPP-NPA, and thus, are not in need of 'rescuing' nor humanitarian compassion.

Worse, enforced disappearances under Mrs. Arroyo could run up to the record of the Marcos dictatorship and during the total war policy of the Aquino administration more than 700 and 821 victims respectively, have been made to disappear without a trace.

As we commemorate the UN-declared International Day of the Disappeared, we at DESAPARECIDOS, an organization of families of all the victims of enforced disappearances from different regimes, come together to collectively express our desire to determine the fate of our loved ones and demand for justice for the transgression done upon them. We hold the Arroyo government responsible for the continuous inexplicable cruelty of enforced disappearance.

The government of Mrs. Arroyo, with the support of the US government, has been implementing Oplan Bantay Laya that has physically eliminated dissidents and ordinary Filipinos alike through killings and enforced disappearances.  It has allowed these detestable acts to happen at an alarming rate as a systematic policy used by the state to silence dissidents and those it arbitrarily tags as "enemies of the state."

It is the government's task to protect the Filipino people, no matter what their social status or their political beliefs may be. Thus, no government could dismiss the urgency and gravity of surfacing our missing kin.