HOTSPOT
I’m as stunned as many others by what transpired at a press conference this week at Plaridel town in Bulacan. I’m just happy and relieved that Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro are alive and free.
Others like missing University of the Philippines students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan have yet to be found.
Hardly a consolation to their mothers and yet a measure of justice, it is worth reminding that the Court of Appeals affirmed last year the 2018 conviction of retired Philippine Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. and two other military officials for the 2006 kidnapping and serious illegal detention of Karen and Sherlyn. Palparan was meted the punishment of reclusion perpetua without possibility of parole.
Quoted in a Manila Bulletin report, the appellate court said: “The testimonies of these witnesses are credible, clear and categorical. These prosecution witnesses were also detainees themselves who saw and got to know the two victims Sherlyn and Karen when they were in various military camps and detachments in Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Bataan and Zambales.”
I hope no one else would experience what happened to Jhed and Jonila, Sherlyn and Karen.
But perhaps a potent way to prevent it from recurring is having a law against enforced disappearance.
I think we would make our country safe for democratic action, if we have such a law that would make it a state policy “the prohibition against secret detention places, solitary confinement, incommunicado, or other similar forms of detention,” and include provisions for “penal and civil sanctions for such violations, and compensation and rehabilitation for the victims and their families, particularly with respect to the use of torture, force, violence, threat, intimidation or any other means which vitiate the free will of persons abducted, arrested, detained, disappeared or otherwise removed from the effective protection of the law.”
Here is a good definition of the crime: “Enforced or involuntary disappearance refers to the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places such person outside the protection of the law.”
To promote free exercise of civil, political and human rights and the proper role of state security forces, the law should state that: “An ‘Order of Battle’ or any order of similar nature, official or otherwise, from a superior officer or a public authority causing the commission of enforced or involuntary disappearance is unlawful and cannot be invoked as a justifying or exempting circumstance. Any person receiving such an order shall have the right to disobey it.”
Just like the Constitution’s strict safeguards on the imposition of martial law, the law could declare that “the right against enforced or involuntary disappearance and the fundamental safeguards for its prevention shall not be suspended under any circumstance including political instability, threat of war, state of war or other public emergencies.”
To discourage criminals, the law could impose the penalty of reclusion perpetua and its accessory penalties on the following:
(1) Those who directly committed the act of enforced or involuntary disappearance;
(2) Those who directly forced, instigated, encouraged or induced others to commit the act;
(3) Those who cooperated in acts without which enforced or involuntary disappearance would not have been consummated;
(4) Those officials who allowed the act or abetted in the consummation of act when it is within their power to stop or uncover the commission thereof; and
(5) Those who cooperated in the execution of the act by previous or simultaneous acts.
Before anyone says this is a radical proposal, please know these are actually excerpts from Republic Act 10353 or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012.
I ask you to Google “Republic Act 10353” and to read it. It is well-written and well-thought out.
Principal authors were: Reps. Edcel Lagman, Lorenzo Tañada, Walden Bello, Kaka Bag-ao, Salvador Escudero III, Neri Colmenares, Teddy Casiño, Rafael Mariano, Luz Ilagan, Emmi de Jesus, Mong Palatino, Rufus Rodriguez; and Senators Chiz Escudero, Bong Revilla, Manny Villar, Miriam Defensor Santiago, and Kiko Pangilinan.
May this law be enforced and obeyed, for every Filipino’s freedom and safety. No Filipino should ever be a victim of involuntary or enforced disappearance, a truly heinous and abominable crime.