Today, February 19, 2025, marks the 18th year of the disappearance of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Leo Velasco. He was last seen walking along a street in Cagayan de Oro at around 10:30 a.m. on February 19, 2007 when three armed men claiming to be government agents forced him into a van. Velasco is one of eight NDFP consultants and personnel abducted between May 2006 and December 2007 under the Gloria Arroyo regime.
Witnesses to Velasco’s abduction said one of the armed men wore a vest with the insignia of the Criminal Intelligence and Detection Group (CIDG). And yet, when Velasco’s daughter Aya Santos and human rights groups checked with the CIDG and other police and military camps, they all denied having him in custody. Worse, the first witnesses that they were able to talk to—a security guard and a street vendor—could no longer be located a week later.
“Velasco’s enforced disappearance of nearly two decades has eerie parallels to that of my son, activist Jonas Burgos, who has been missing since April 28, 2007, nearly as long ago as Velasco,” said Desaparecidos spokesperson and Karapatan National Council member Edith Burgos. “A waiter who witnessed Jonas’ abduction from a restaurant is also gone.”
“It would not be far-fetched to say that the State, with all its power, had a hand in the sudden unavailability of these crucial witnesses,” said Mrs. Burgos. “That the perpetrators across regimes have been able to cover their tracks for so long demonstrates that enforced disappearance, along with other grave human rights violations like extrajudicial killing, is an instrument of repression commonly utilized by the State to silence dissent and spread mass terror,” she added.
The grim statistics on enforced disappearances since the 1970s prove this crime is not regime-bound. At least 759 people disappeared during the martial law rule of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and 821 during the Corazon Aquino regime, the so-called icon of democracy. At least 39 cases of enforced disappearances were recorded during the Fidel Ramos regime and 26 under that of Joseph Estrada. At least 206 people were reported to have been forcibly disappeared during the Gloria Arroyo regime, while 29 went missing under the regime of Benigno Aquino III and 21 under Rodrigo Duterte. Under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., there have so far been 15 persons forcibly disappeared.
“While we continue to demand answers for these decades-long disappearances,” said Mrs. Burgos, “we are especially concerned with the fact that there are 15 victims of enforced disappearance so far under Marcos Jr. Since 2012, when the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act was passed, no one has been held accountable for this dastardly crime.”
“On the 18th anniversary of Leo Velasco’s enforced disappearance, Desaparecidos declares its determination to seek answers on, and demand accountability for his and the close to 2,000 cases documented since martial law. We will not waver in our quest for justice.” #