I don’t remember the date anymore yet I clearly remember the nagging feelings of anger and pain in me when I happened to read the story on Enforced Disappearance of two young women, namely  Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

The story behind their continued disappearance is something worth remembering and worth fighting for in a democratic country with literate and sane citizens like ours.

Isn’t it a sad, ugly and a terrible truth that while the rest of us are here—very visible, existing, free and alive together with our friends, families, and loved ones—there are also people (especially women) who are still out there somewhere in a dark, dreary and dingy dungeon with their arms and feet bounded in chains and being raped or tortured or perhaps buried alive or left dead in a shallow grave while their families have remained clueless of their loved ones’ real conditions (whether they are dead or alive) and whereabouts to date?           

Below is an official Statement of Support from Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), a network of activists, academics and lawyers across 25 countries in the Asia Pacific region, for the Philippines as we also joined in a global call on  International Day of the Disappeared:

Statement of Support for justice for the abduction, torture, rape and enforced disappearance of UP students and women human rights defenders Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, a leading network of 180 feminist organisations and women representing groups of diverse women from 25 countries in the region, fully supports the struggle for justice of the mothers, friends, supporters and human rights organisations in the Philippines on the abduction, torture, rape and enforced disappearance of UP students and women human rights defenders Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, who have been missing since 2006.

We salute the courage of their mothers, human rights defenders themselves, in filing a criminal case filed before the Department of Justice in the Philippines against the military perpetrators of such abduction, torture, rape and disappearance of the two young women as their contribution in pursuing accountability and responsibility for the rights violations against their daughters and in ending impunity in the Philippines.

Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan are women human rights defenders who were sympathetic to the plight of the poor farmers. They volunteered in organising the farmers who were continuously deprived of their right to land, livelihood and peaceful habitation, as elements of the military continuous to harass them in Central Luzon.

On May 4, 2011, the mothers of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, together with the witnesses to their abduction, filed charges of rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention and physical injuries against retired Maj. Gen. Palparan and other military officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Palparan was then the commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in Central Luzon, where the abduction took place. Under his command are elements of the military who, in one way or another, became direct implementors of the abduction of the female students, conveniently tagging them as members of rebel groups.

Witnesses in the case, one of them farmer Raymond Manalo, swore to court that they were illegally arrested and detained under Palparan’s reign in the area. While in detention, they were able to see and talk to the missing students when they were transferred from one military camp to another in the region. While enduring the torture inflicted upon them, they witnessed how the two students were tortured in different forms unimaginable, and were also subject to sexual abuse by their captors. The case of the two women students indicate that the pervasive policy and practice of using rape and other forms of sexual abuse to humiliate and terrorize the women and the people exist and is prevalent up to the present.

In late May this year, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the accountability of state forces in the abduction and disappearance of Karen, Sherlyn and Manuel Merino. It also demanded that the military produce the three victims of enforced disappearance.

Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the military are responsible for these violations, not only in violation of the Philippine Constitution, but also of international human rights instruments such as Convention against Torture, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women and the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, among others. The State has the duty to protect its citizens’ civil and political rights, while making the human rights violators accountable and be subject to the rule of law.

However, the perpetrators remain scot-free to this day. After denying to produce the two students when the Philippine Court of Appeals granted the petition for writ of habeas corpus in 2007, the military continues to deny their hand in the human rights violations against the two women. Their denial is coupled with their campaign in maligning the victims and discrediting the witnesses.

While we commend the courage of the mothers of Karen and Sherlyn, now human rights defenders themselves, in pursuing the criminal case, it is equally significant that the Aquino government must take concrete steps in making the roads to justice accessible for the victims and their families. The Aquino government must exercise its power in making the perpetrators accountable.

We also call on the Aquino government to ratify the Convention on Enforced Disappearances and certify as urgent the Anti-Enforced Disappearance Bill pending in the houses of parliament in the Philippines. There has to be a mechanism to criminalise enforced disappearance, which has become one of the most cruel forms of human rights violations since the Marcos dictatorship, in the Philippines and in the whole world.

We call on all fellow women human rights defenders to support the struggle for justice. Together, let us remember the desaparecidos this August 30 International Day of the Disappeared by achieving justice and by ending impunity in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world.(Comments at naldronaldreyes@yahoo.com)

By: Ronald O. Reyes