Rights Group Welcomes Law for "desaparecidos"

NAGA CITY-A rights group in Bikol has expressed approval over the passage in a senate committee of a bill seeking to impose penalty on enforced and involuntary disappearance.

Paul Vincent Casilihan of Karapatan-Bicol said they were happy over the approval of the House Bill 5886 or the Anti-Involuntary Disappearance Bill in the Senate committee on justice and human rights. "This would strengthen the fight against perpetrators of involuntary disappearances in the country," he said.

He said victims of involuntary disappearance have suffered enough from the loss of their loved ones to enforced or involuntary disappearances. "Some of them have even failed to see and claim the bodies of their relatives and give them decent burials, while some have waited in vain for the return of their missing relatives."

House bill

He said they were hoping that the House Bill would be passed into law, "so victims of enforced and involuntary disappearances would be given justice. "

Earlier, opposition Senator Francis Escudero said the Senate committee on justice and human rights had approved the bill "in tandem with the anti-torture bill, the anti-involuntary disappearance measure as a response to the growing clamor ... to institute mechanisms aimed at protecting human rights."

Escudero said the bill would complement a constitutionally-protected right that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Last week, members of the bicameral conference committee unanimously approved House bill.

"These two measures seek to address the abuse of State power and tilt the balance in favor of human rights," Escudero said.

The bill defines the crime of enforced or involuntary disappearance as the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty committed by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State.

It would penalize  perpetrators of involuntary disappearances , at most, with reclusion perpetua, equivalent to 20 years and one day to 40 years of imprisonment.

It would also prohibit the granting of "orders of battle" by the military, police or any law enforcement agency to justify an enforced or involuntary disappearance.

Loophole

Naga City Legal Officer Angel R. Ojastro III said there could be a loophole in the proposed law.

"There is no way to track down the perpetrators of enforced or involuntary disappearance because those who do it do not leave paper trail[s], they just issue verbal orders," Ojastro said.

He said most of the cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances were undocumented because of the difficulty in establishing evidence.

"Unless somebody would tell the truth, it would be hard to prosecute perpetrators."

But he said the law could deter perpetrators.

"State officials, the military especially, should not see the proposed law as derogation of their power but rather as an emphasis on their constitutional duty to protect the people. In some way, it would give them a sense of professionalism."