Present!

PINOY KASI
Present!

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:19am (Mla time) 08/30/2006

Published on Page A13 of the August 30, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TODAY is the International Day of the Disappeared, "disappeared" being a translation of the Spanish "desaparecidos."

In the 1970s and 1980s, Latin Americans began to use that term to refer to people who disappeared under politically repressive regimes. Like the Philippines, several Latin American countries suffered through that decade under US-sponsored military dictatorships. The most brutal ones were those of Chile and Argentina, where the regimes conducted "dirty wars" that included thousands of liberals and leftists being picked up by the authorities, never to be seen again.

Eventually, the full brutality of these disappearances surfaced as survivors, and the military themselves, came out with the stories of what had happened. In many cases, the victims would simply be executed and dumped into unmarked graves. But in Argentina, the most horrifying of stories involved "vuelos de la muerte" [death flights], in which sedated political prisoners would be loaded onto military planes and then dumped
into the sea.

Argentina also had the "chiquitos desaparecidos," disappeared children. Some of the abducted political prisoners were pregnant women, and the military would sometimes wait until the mothers delivered. The mothers would then be executed, and then the children were spirited away for adoption.

Nilo Valerio

Human rights groups estimate that during the Marcos dictatorship, there were about 1,600 disappeared Filipinos. I had a personal link to one of them, and I thought that sharing his story would make the disappeared more real.

Back in the 1980s, when I was working for a health NGO, one of our frequent visitors was Daisy Valerio, an NGO worker who would come by selling bamboo products from her communities' income-generating projects.

I knew Daisy's husband, Nilo Valerio, a former SVD priest who had gone to the hills to join the New People's Army (NPA). Many religious like him had chosen that option because they felt it was the only way to address society's injustices.

Then one day it happened. Nilo disappeared. We learned later from witnesses in the town of Bakun in the northern province of Benguet, that there was an encounter on Aug. 24, 1985 between the military and the NPA. Three rebels were killed: Nilo, 35; Reseta Fernandez, 27; and Soledad Salvador, 28.

The soldiers beheaded the three rebels, and used one of the women's heads for target practice. The bodies were buried in a single grave and the heads in another site. The graves were all unmarked. The acting chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at the time was Fidel Ramos, and he himself described the executions as "barbaric." He promised an impartial investigation and punishment for those involved.

To this day, the bodies have not been recovered, and no soldier has been prosecuted.

Daisy eventually became secretary general of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances (Find). In 2003, Daisy and her two sons visited the "barangay" [village] where Nilo was killed. She says elderly people came up to the sons for a tearful reunion of sorts; they could see the sons' resemblance to "Ka Bobot," Nilo's underground name.

Bakun residents spoke too about the need for healing for their community, and how this has not happened because the bodies have not been recovered.

It is the disappearance of 1,600 Filipinos that keeps the entire nation from recovering. Even more disturbing is that the disappearances have continued. Even after democracy was restored, disappearances continued through the presidencies of Aquino, Ramos and Estrada, although not on the same scale as during the Marcos regime. Sadly, there were also the disappeared from within the NPA when, in the 1980s, paranoid cadres executed their own comrades suspected of being deep penetration agents (DPAs).

In August 2001, Daisy and other members of Find had an audience with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was barely seven months in office. After listening to their stories, the President told them: "I hope there will be no disappearances in my time."

Daisy tells me she still cries now for Nilo, but more often, she cries, too, out of anger at what's happening today under Ms Arroyo, with almost daily reports of new arrests, murders and, yes, disappearances.

Living on

Anthropologists note that only humans bury the dead, with mourning and with reverence. Burying and grieving for the dead are among the hallmarks of our humanity, so the phenomenon of the disappeared is especially disturbing. What kind of low life, one has to ask, can kill, and then defile the dead?

Social scientists have coined the term "othering" to describe the process here. People have to be indoctrinated, brainwashed, to hate the "enemy" and to think of them as less than human. The other day the Inquirer had aphotograph of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, Ms Arroyo's leading star in her all-out war against the Left, addressing an anti-communist rally in Pampanga province. The caption said he talked for two hours. One can imagine the rage that he built up in that rally. I'm sure he didn't call for arrests, or torture or murder. The master demagogue knows better.

The government may want to pick up a few lessons from the repressive 1970s and 1980s. Succinctly: The dirty wars failed, and failed miserably. Rather than instilling fear in the population, each disappearance, each human rights violation drove more people to join the opposition and eventually, the repressive regimes, even with the full force of the military behind them, collapsed.

Appropriately, the practice of "disappearing" the detainees has worked against the dictators and their butchers. Normally, these criminals go into exile and bide their time, hoping to benefit from statutes of limitations or a time limit for the prosecution of crimes. But a revolutionary ruling from a Chilean judge, Juan Guzman Tapia, has changed this and has become the basis for international law. Tapia ruled that for as long as people remain "disappeared," these detainees are, technically, still under "sequestration," in the custody of the military, so until they produce the bodies, they remain liable for criminal prosecution.

Eventually, we will know who are behind the new wave of terror in the Philippines. The truth will always come out because human rights violations remain etched in people's memories, including those of the soldiers ordered to kill and maim. But it is the relatives and friends of the "disappeared" who often end up at the forefront of organizations and
movements to bring justice. In Buenos Aires, Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo are well known, grandmothers who keep their vigil at a central plaza calling for justice for their disappeared children and grandchildren.

In Latin American countries, memorial services are conducted where they read out the names of the disappeared. As each name is read, people respond "Presente!" It's a way of saying the disappeared are still with us.