Every year on All Souls’ Day, we, the families of desaparecidos, having no tombs to visit and still hoping to be reunited with our missing kin alive or dead, gather at the Bantayog ng mga Desaparecido at the Baclaran church grounds to collectively remember and honor our loved ones.

The shrine has been a mute witness to the pain and anguish of mothers, wives, children and other relatives who still feel the inhumanity of their loved ones’ deprivation of liberty and multiple violations of human rights in the hands of their captors. That justice has been elusive and impunity is the order of the day are a reality they confront with hope never wanting.

Along with other human rights advocates and defenders, we pray, offer flowers and light candles even as we reflect on the desaparecidos’ courageous struggle for freedom and dignity for the Filipino people. Thus, we bring our beloved heroes and martyrs back to the present uphill battle for peace and justice.

While we join the nation and the families of the soldiers who were brutally killed in Al-Barka, Basilan and other conflict-torn areas in the country condemn the atrocities, and hope that government will resolutely pursue the President’s bold declaration of “all-out justice” for the victims and their families, we lament his failure to express the same for the ten reported victims of enforced disappearance under his watch.

The Aquino administration may not have declared a definitive human rights agenda, but we expect it at the very least to finally enact the anti-enforced disappearance bill into law and sign and accede to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

These domestic and international laws may not bring our missing kin back to our fold, but they will definitely prevent others from being forcibly disappeared and spare their families the trauma that we suffered.

http://www.find.org.ph/news/13-statements/23