SELDA, Desaparecidos, atbp.
Sept. 23, a Saturday, the Darroca Training Center in Arevalo resonated with songs vibrant with pagmamahal sa Tinubu-ang Lupa (love for the native land) as SELDA-Panay celebrated its 20th anniversary. More than 100 SELDA members, all victims of human rights abuses, gathered in pursuit of the theme: “Dugang nga pagpalig-on…padayunon ang pagsulong sang katarungan, hustisya kag kahilwayan…tubtub sa kadalag-an!” (Strengthen more…continue pushing for human rights, justice and liberty until victory!) In the people gathered that day, “ay naglalablab ang pagmamahal sa bayan” (love for country with fervor burning), said invited speaker Marco Palo, Bayan Muna national campaign director.
SELDA is Samahan ng mga Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya. Days, months, years of anxiety in the detention cell differed as to how long for each of the detained. My husband Rudy endured six months in the Marcos stockade and two months of provincial arrest. Many were victims of torture, e.g., being made to lie down between two chairs as a sort of bridge after which the stomach was whacked with a club. There were women stripped naked and forced to sit on a block of ice. Other atrocities of the Marcos regime crippled the body but failed to bend the spirit.
SELDA members continue to walk the earth, strength mustered in the struggle against oppression, exploitation, and abject poverty suffered by the great masses of our people. In the case of the ‘disappeared,’ there is only deafening silence. I’ll focus longer on ‘disappearances’ to give voice, be it ever so small, to the voiceless ‘disappeared.’ Yes, create uproar to join thousands other uproars to rumble on the eardrums of the guilty.
‘Disappearances’or Desaparecidos was one of the most horrifying human rights violations of the Marcos dictatorship. Search of the families of the ‘disappeared’ ended up with no detention records, no death notices, no graveyard, no bones. Nada. Consigned into nothingness except in the hearts of their loved ones who continue to agonize over the pain of their disappearance.
An ABC situationer of July 6, 2006 shown during the SELDA anniversary program showed the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to have the most number of ‘disappearances’ — 181 cases and, heaven forbid, not counting. President Estrada has 16; President Ramos, 87. (As of this writing, Sept. 28, KARAPATAN has recorded 184 cases under GMA.) A ‘disappearance’ is not identical to other human rights violations such as torture, arbitrary detention, and extra-judicial execution where the fate of the prisoner or detainee is known. The uncertainty torments in the case of a ‘disappearance.’ Could he/she have decomposed six feet under the ground or have been left to rot in some killing field? Or does he/she still breathe with life in Timbuktu?
‘Disappearances’: A Workbook. An Amnesty International USA publication (c. 1980), mentions case studies of ‘disappearances’ in the country as reported by the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, a group created by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) that monitored politically-motivated arrests. Included in the workbook is a paper, ‘Disappearances’ in the Philippines by Sr, Mariani Dimaranan of the AMRSP.
Sr. Mariani categorized ‘disappearance’ cases in the Philippines to three: (1) those of people arrested without witnesses (or without positive identification of the arresting agents), who are never found again; (2) those of prisoners—usually arrested without an appropriate warrant—held in complete isolation for weeks or months, while their families cannot discover their whereabouts and the military authorities deny having them in custody, until they eventually reappear in one detention center or another; and (3) those of victims of “salvaging,” who have “disappeared” until their bodies are discovered. Documents show most of the Philippine “disappeared” fall under the first two categories
Amnesty International (AI) distinguishes a case of ‘disappearance’ from that of a missing person, a kidnapping, an incommunicado detention, or an extra-judicial execution by the following: (1) There are reasonable grounds to believe that a person (the victim) has been taken into custody by the authorities or their agent. (2) The authorities deny that the victim is in their custody or the custody of their agent. (3) There are reasonable grounds to disbelieve that denial.
Denial of accountability makes a ‘disappearance’ unique among human rights violations. “By its very nature,” states AI, “a ‘disappearance’ clouds the identity of its perpetrator. If there is no prisoner, no body, no victim, then presumably no one can be accused of having done anything.” But where there is a consistent pattern of grave human rights violations, AI believes blame may be attributed to the government concerned—if only by implication—under the principle that a state’s primary responsibility is to protect the safety of its citizens. (Underscoring mine)
How deep is the emotional trauma caused by the ‘disappeared’ on their families? Studies made by psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors revealed “a prolonged state of crisis, in which the anguish and pain caused by the absence of a loved one continues indefinitely. It is the crushing reality of loss coupled with the unreality of death that afflicts the families of those who have ‘disappeared.’ The result is a form of mental torture brought about by either the suspension of bereavement or the feeling of helplessness – and paralyzing uncertainty...”
This paralyzing uncertainty is absent in the case of my cousin Edmundo Rivera Legislador, a student leader at UP Iloilo, who was gunned down by the military. Anxiety vanished with the finality of his death. Mourning was complete and we his relatives have adjusted to the loss. To quote the psychologists, “Through mourning, one learns to adjust to the changes that must occur following a loss.”
In the case of the families of the ‘disappeared,’ the emotional trauma is not healed with the passage of time because no one knows what happened to the ‘disappeared.’ Theirs is a continuing agony. A pain goes on and on… (Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)