An environment activist, Rowena Dasig, 25, has been missing after she was to be released on August 22 from the district jail in Lucena City. Human Rights watchdog, Karapatan, likewise reported that, James Jazmines, a younger brother of a former consultant for the National Democratic Front (NDFP) during the failed peace talks with the Duterte administration was also missing. Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay suspects that IT consultant James Jazmines could be “the latest victim of enforced disappearances when he failed to return home from dinner on August 23 with his cycling buddies at Purok 4, Barangay San Lorenzo in Tabaco City, Albay.”
At this time of a Bongbong Marcos – Sara Duterte administration, is this phenomenon of missing youths a natural consequence of the country’s getting back as top leaders individuals with the names “Marcos” and “Duterte”? Is the Philippines fated to greatly suffer henceforth killings and disappearances of youths every time a Marcos and/or a Duterte takes over as head-of-state?
Recall that under the Martial Law regime of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, tortures, arrests, disappearances and killings were in official government records to number 11,103 cases. But as estimated by thousands of survivors, and officially by the government institution, Human Rights Victims Memorial Commission (HRVMC), the number of such victims may have been more than 200,000, within the period from 1972 t0 1986.
Of course, from this day onwards, as the “Ber months leading to the Christmas season 2024” is just around the corner, the Filipino people greatly wish for the complete stoppage of such disappearances, arrests and killings of Filipinos involved in the protection of environment and the promotion of good governance.
For a long while now, the NTF-ELCAC which has had the reputation of red-tagging organizations and individuals, is the usual suspect in encouraging the PNP and AFP to carry out these extra-judicial acts on environment activists and persons calling for pro-people reforms in government.
Can the Filipino people now expect soon the abolition of this office by the appropriate government authority, as suggested by the visiting UN Representative concerned with the protection of Human Rights?
Will the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies now do their utmost best to carry out their mandates of solving these latest incidents of missing youths, and thereby rightfully give justice to the victims themselves and their families?
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