A day before marking the International Day of the Disappeared this August 30th, families of victims of enforced disappearance took to the streets to renew their calls to surface their missing loved ones.
Governments have long used enforced disappearance as a repressive tool to silence dissent. The International Day of the Disappeared is an occasion to raise public awareness about the scourge of enforced disappearance, support the families of the disappeared, demand justice, and hold perpetrators accountable.
More than 1,000 individuals were forcibly disappeared under the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, 821 during the Cory Aquino regime, 39 under Ramos, 26 under Estrada, 206 under Arroyo, nine under Benigno Aquino III, 20 under Duterte and 15 so far under three years of the Marcos Jr. regime. In August 2025, two activists – James Jazmines and Felix Salaveria – were abducted in less than a week, and have not been surfaced, despite the Court of Appeals ruling on their families’ petitions for the privilege of the writ of amparo.
Enforced disappearance persists despite the enactment in 2012 of Republic Act No. 10353 or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act which defines the crime of enforced disappearance, sets penalties for perpetrators, provides safeguards for victims and mandates duties for state actors like the police and military to investigate these cases and provide information to families. Thirteen years after its enactment, enforced disappearances continue, and families in search of their missing kin face brick walls when confronting state authorities.
Not only have successive regimes, including the Marcos Jr. government, showed contempt for this law. They have also consistently refused to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
In fact, when families of the disappeared seeking protective writs from the courts receive favorable rulings, the courts invariably lambast the military and police for failing to exercise extraordinary diligence in searching for the missing victims – a sign that the State has repeatedly failed to comply with its obligations under domestic and international human rights instruments and a glaring manifestation of complicity.
The search for the forcibly disappeared is always an uphill battle because families have to contend with a crime that, by definition, is state-perpetrated or state-sanctioned.
As we commemorate the disappeared on this day, we mark the 6th National Assembly of Desaparecidos, the organization of families of the disappeared, with greater fervor in holding the reactionary regimes, including the Duterte and Marcos Jr. regimes, accountable for the enforced disappearances under their watch.
Only by forging ranks and aligning their struggle with broader efforts for social change can the families of victims gain ground in their relentless quest for truth and closure, and for justice and accountability, and realize a society where enforced disappearances have become a thing of the past.