GENEVA – Human rights defenders participating at the 59th UN Human Rights Council session renewed calls to the Philippine government to surface missing activists James Jazmines and Felix Salaveria Jr., as they submitted letters of allegation on their abduction and enforced disappearance to the offices of UN Special Rapporteurs, on behalf of their families.
Karapatan said that in submitting the cases of Jazmines and Salaveria, it aims to bring attention to the “alarming spate of abductions and enforced disappearances in the Philippines.” From July 2022 to June 2025, KARAPATAN documented at least eighteen (18) victims of enforced disappearance who remain missing, as of this writing.
On August 23, 2024 and August 28, 2024, James Jazmines and Felix Salaveria Jr. were abducted respectively, in Tabaco City, Albay province.
“Ten months have passed, and there have been no substantial steps undertaken by the Marcos administration to even acknowledge the enforced disappearance of James and Felix and work towards their surfacing. While the Court of Appeals hearing on the petition for the writ of amparo and habeas data in the case of Salaveria is ongoing, there has been no decision yet on the petition of the wife of James Jazmines. Time is ticking, and every second that their loved ones are denied information on their whereabouts increases the danger on James and Felix,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general and co-head of the Philippine UPR Watch delegation in Geneva, Switzerland.
The human rights defenders’ engagement at the Human Rights Council coincides with the commemoration of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26, a day commemorated by many families of the disappeared.
On June 26, 2006, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño, two women activists from the University of the Philippines, were abducted in Hagonoy, Bulacan by soldiers. On the same day, NDFP peace consultant Prudencio Calubid, his wife Celina Palma, companions Gloria Soco, Ariel Beloy and Antonio Lacno were abducted by suspected soldiers in Sipocot, Camarines Sur. Lacno was able to escape but the four remain missing to this day.
“We are one with the families of Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeno, James Jazmines, Felix Salaveria Jr., and all desaparecidos in the call to surface them. Their abduction, torture and enforced disappearances are stark reminders that the climate of impunity persists because of systemic impunity and government policy,” said Jonila Castro, herself an abduction and torture survivor. She is also the current spokesperson of Kalikasan and national council member of Karapatan.
Castro and her fellow environmental activist Jhed Tamano were abducted by State security forces in Bataan on September 2, 2023. They bravely spoke out in a press conference of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) that they were abducted by the military, effecting their release.
Palabay and Castro are part of the delegation of Philippine UPR Watch, a network of faith-based and human rights organizations, participating at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland, where UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan delivered her report.
The Philippine UPR Watch also urged the Philippine government to ratify the International Convention on Enforced Disappearance.