Families, friends celebrate Luing's 52nd birthday
Edith Burgos (3rd from left) joins the birthday
celebration of missing activist Ma. Luisa
Posa-Dominado in Iloilo City on August 10.
Nestor P. Burgos Jr. photo
It was a fitting party with food, poems, songs and cake topped with red icing and trimmings.
They were all there-- family, friends and guests--except for the celebrant.
Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado failed to attend her 52nd birthday party organized by her friends at the St. Clements Retreat House last Friday.
Dominado remains missing more than four months after she was abducted along with fellow activist Nilo Arado on Aug. 12.
Unidentified armed men waylaid the victims' vehicle in Barangay Cabanbanan in Oton town before they were forced into a van. Their companion, human rights workers Jose Ely Garachico was seriously wounded after he was shot in the neck and left behind.
Around 100 of their colleagues, friends and relatives threw a bash Friday to honor them for their work in the activist movement and to call for their release.
Masked men hold a protest denouncing alleged
atrocities of communist rebels in front the St.
Clement's Church compound where the birthday
commemoration of Dominado was held.
Nestor P. Burgos Jr. photo
Edith Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Joseph Burgos and widow of press freedom icon Joe Burgos, joined the victims' families and friends in calling for their release.
"I want to express my solidarity and offer my help to the families of other victims because there are many other victims that are more unfortunate than Jonas," Burgos said before a Mass was celebrated.
"Luisa has two daughters. I know it is very hard waiting and looking for their mother, the same way I have not stopped looking for my son," said Burgos.
Jonas was abducted by alleged military agents at the Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City on April 28. The military has repeatedly denied any involvement in Jonas' disappearance.
But Burgos filed a petition for habeas corpus before the Supreme Court asking the High Court to direct the respondents, mostly military officials, to surface her son.
The respondents include President Macapagal-Arroyo, as Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Army chief Lieutenant General Romeo Tolentino, Major Generals Juanito Gomez and Delfin Bangit, Lieutenant Colonels Noel Clement and Melquiades Feliciano.
She said she has realized that the case of her son could be landmark case in search for others who have been abducted. Her family has been working with Desaparacidos, a group of families and friends of forced disappearance, to help find the victims.
'Desaparacidos'
There are 199 victims of enforced disappearance from January 2001 to May this year, according to the human rights group Karapatan.
"I only pray that what my family is doing will help other," said Burgos.
Friends and family members of missing activists in Negros Occidental and Iloilo joined the commemoration.
"My family has not given up hope in finding my father," said 22-year-old Redskie Marapo.
His father Roberto, 44, a member of a farmers' group was abducted along with Dionelo Borras in Ilog town, Negros Occidental in March last year.
Two other activists in the province, Perseus Geagoni and Felicita Katalbas, remain missing.
Geagoni, an organizer of the National Federation of Sugar Workers was abducted in Bacolod City on December 2005. Katalbas, project officer of the Negros Rural Assistance Program, went missing on January 25 this year.
Anti-NPA picket
The event was marred by a picket by around 10 masked men who carried placards and distributed anti-communist pamphlets in front of the St. Clements Church compound denouncing the New People's Army for alleged atrocities including the abduction of Dominado and Arado.
The men were accompanied by unidentified persons with video and still cameras.
One of the masked who identified himself as "Jun" said they only want to help find the missing activists.
Activists who confronted the protesters alleged that the protesters were either military agents or paid by the military.
Aurelio Bosque, spokesperson of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Panay, identified one the men accompanying the protesters as a certain "S/Sgt. Eduardo Feduchino", based on a key tag on the motorcycle the man was riding.
'Sabotage'
Dominado's elder daughter May Wan said the picket "was clearly meant to sabotage" the commemoration of her mother's birthday.
"They are adding insult to injury. Our family believes that military agents took Nanay and Tito Nilo. If they wanted to help us, why do it this way, with masks and timed during our commemoration here?" said May Wan.
Burgos urged the families and friends of the missing activists not to give up hope.
"Their abductors paint them (victims) as monsters but we know the truth. Let us not allow them to get into us," she said.
She said she has learned to forgive her son's abductors and encouraged the others to do the same.
"We can forgive but we cannot forget what they did to our loved ones because forgiveness should be based on justice. Let us forgive but let us not go away," said Burgos.