IN COMMEMORATION of the International Day of the Disappeared (IDD) observed every August 30, non-governmental organizations Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) and Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND), in partnership with the Office of Senator Pia Cayetano, hosted a forum on enforced disappearance (ED) last September 1 in the Lorenzo M. Tañada Room of the Philippine Senate.
The forum, held to honor Filipino victims of ED or desaparecidos (the disappeared), underscored the status of ED in the Philippines and Asia. In an AFAD primer on ED, the United Nations (UN) defines the phenomenon to be “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty [committed by State agents].”
Attended by representatives from the Committee on Foreign Relations and various Senate offices, the forum pushed for the ratification of the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons From ED in the Philippines. The convention, whose ratification is part of the Commission on Human Rights’ strategic plan for 2011-2015, makes all the principles in the 1992 UN Declaration of the same title legally binding.
Road to ratification
“Now that we already have the [Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 (Republic Act (RA) 10353)], we are pushing the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to endorse a Philippine signing of the convention to Malacañang,” said FIND Co-chairperson Nilda Lagman-Sevilla on the progress of the convention’s ratification in the country.
RA 10353, was enacted in December 2012 after 16 years of interrupted evaluations in Congress. Championed by former congressman Edcel Lagman, brother of Lagman-Sevilla and disappeared Marcos-era human rights and labor lawyer Hermon Lagman, the law was not only a product of advocacy but a family crusade as well.
“[The law] provides not only prevention [and] penal administrative and civil sanctions but also reparation measures that include restitution, monetary compensation and a comprehensive psychosocial rehabilitation,” Lagman-Sevilla explained.
When asked about measures of law monitoring, Lagman-Sevilla said, “What [AFAD and FIND] are trying to do [is] educate stakeholders [on the] salient features of the law so that they will know what to do in cases of enforced disappearances.”
While the law features preventive and penalizing mechanisms, it is not universally binding unlike the UN convention. Universal jurisdiction aims to stop the spread of ED cases not only on the national levels but on the global level as well. FIND and AFAD hope to achieve this through the ratification of the UN convention.
However, the endorsement from the DFA has yet to reach Malacañang. “We don’t really know where the barrier [to the ratification] lies,” Lagman-Sevilla laments.
In a privilege speech delivered in the Senate session hall after the forum, Sen. Cayetano urged fellow legislators to consider a thorough study of the convention, justifying that many of the convention’s provisions complement RA 10353.
Cayetano added that the ratification would manifest the country’s solidarity with other countries, especially Asian neighbors, concerned with the issue of ED.
“Human rights should never take a backseat in the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)] community—not now and not in 2015 and beyond,” she asserted.
Extending to Asia
AFAD and FIND have long been lobbying for the ratification of the convention not only in the Philippines but also across Asia. Both groups, along with other anti-ED organizations in the region, were part of the body that prompted the UN to recognize the existence of the phenomenon beyond Latin America, where the anti-ED movement started in the 1980s.
“[ED] is not a problem of the past, as many governments of the UN would want other governments to be convinced of, [but rather] it is an ongoing issue,” said AFAD Secretary-General (sec-gen) Mary Aileen Bacalso in an interview with The GUIDON. She added that out of more than 90 countries reported to have ED problems, 27 are from Asia.
So far, AFAD reports that only Cambodia, Iraq, Japan, and Kazakhstan have ratified in the region.
Bacalso expressed hope for Indonesia to be the second [after Cambodia] to ratify the convention in the Asean, considering the new government under recently elected Joko Widodo, whose platform includes human rights in its agenda. As for other countries like Sri Lanka, East Timor and India, to name a few, ED cases remain numerous and unresolved.
Bacalso finds RA 10353, the first anti-ED law in Asia, potentially helpful in the ongoing crusade against ED in the region as it could encourage replication from other governments. AFAD intends to marshal encouragement and sharing of best practices on national and regional mechanisms as provided by the law in future anti-ED conferences, one of which will be from September 17 to 21 in Malate, Manila.
“With [the upcoming] conference, we hope to achieve a plan that would ensure cooperation among organizations working on [ED] to continue sharing experiences,” the AFAD sec-gen said.
Aside from efforts to push the ratification of the anti-ED convention, also included in AFAD and FIND’s commemoration of IDD is an exhibit titled “Hail to the Desaparecidos, Uphold the Rule of Law.” The exhibit contains photos of over 50 desaparecidos and artwork from children of the disappeared culled from psychosocial programs.
The exhibit will be running from September 1 to 4 on the second floor hallway of the Senate.
