Marcos human rights victims’ claims

The Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board has a sunset clause attached to it. This means the board is given only two years to complete its work. If detractors continue to try to stop them from doing their job, then, this task may be delayed and we may never see the end of it. I suggest that we let the board focus on the claims instead of getting distracted by negative criticisms.

In a country like ours, our experience in the past has made us skeptical. We seem to have developed a certain paranoia about people most especially government officials. We just seem too anxious all the time and suspicious about so many things. We need to rebuild the trust we have for public servants. Not all of them are corrupt. On the other hand, our officials also need to show us that they mean well and are honest.

Senator Joker Arroyo has sent a letter to P-Noy appealing for the review of the Board’s Chairperson Lina Sarmiento’s appointment. Satur Ocampo, Rep. Neri Javier Colmenares, Dr. Maria Carolina Araullo, Trinidad Repuno, Tita Lubi and Josephine Dongail have also petitioned to nullify her appointment. I think that they should first be acquainted with General Lina Sarmiento, look at her track record before judging her abilities and honesty. Susmariosep!

What is Republic Act 10368? It is “An act providing for reparation and recognition of victims of human rights violations during the Marcos Regime, documentation of said violations, appropriating funds therefore and for other purposes”.

This is an Act that will recognize the heroism and sacrifices of all Filipinos who were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearance and other gross human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos covering the period from September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986. The Act shows that the State acknowledges its moral and legal obligation towards the said victims and/or their families for the deaths, injuries, sufferings, deprivations and damages they suffered under the Marcos regime.

My father the late Maximo V. Soliven was a human rights victim during the martial law period. After six months of imprisonment where he shared the same prison cell with Ninoy Aquino, he was put into house arrest. It was only when Ninoy Aquino died in August of 1983 that he went underground and started to write again against the dictator Marcos. From September 1972 to the time Marcos fled the country, my father was put under house arrest. He was not allowed to write at all. He was put under the close monitoring of Marcos’ sister Elizabeth Keon. All our telephones were tapped which meant Malacañang eavesdropped into all our telephone conversations.

 In retrospect, I feel I am also a human rights victim. I have been so traumatized by the fate my father experienced that everything is still so vivid in my memory. Up to this day when I think about our life then, I feel a certain chill down my spine and a lot of sadness.  When the People Power Revolution broke out, we left our home and went into hiding. My parents kept me safe all the time. I also had to go abroad to study because my life was endangered. Even if my parents could not afford to send me we worked hard for scholarships and I had to be a working student. Later my father told me that when he started to write his columns again in Mr. & Ms. Magazine, then in the The Inquirer and The Star, he received death threats not only against him but his entire family. Yes, he would eat ‘death threats’ for breakfast every single day.

You don’t know how important this Act is to a martial law baby not to mention a martial law victims’ family. My mother although strong-spirited went through a lot of emotional pain. She had to work doubly hard because my father was ostracized. His great moment in life and success as a journalist just fell flat to the ground. He was devastated and developed deep depression.

Like all of you who are complaining about General Lina Sarmiento to head this board, I too should be skeptical about her if indeed she is a bad person. But she is not. Let us make her focus and do the job. Why should we prolong this agony that we have gone through by bickering and complaining and even trying to stop her from working? P-Noy is also a human rights victim of the Marcos Era. He created this Act for all of us. Why will he have the nerve to kill it just like that by putting someone who is not capable? He is committed to this Act.

The Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board was created as an independent and quasi-judicial body with the following functions: receive, evaluate, process and investigate applications for claims under this Act; issue subpoena/s ad testificandum and subpoena /s duces tecum; conduct independent administrative proceedings and resolve disputes over claims and approve with finality all eligible claims under this Act.

The nine members of the Human Rights Claims Board are: the Chair, Lina Castillo Sarmiento, who began her career in the police service as a forensic chemist of the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police Crime Laboratory in 1980. She later held positions in the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the former National Drug Law Enforcement and Prevention Coordination Center. She served as Chief of Police in Apalit, Pampanga and Pandi, Bulacan. She is the first woman to head a national support unit of the PNP concurrently as director of the Police Community Relations Group and the Police Security and Protection Group. She holds the distinction of being the first female officer to receive two stars as police director or the equivalent of a major general in the Armed Forces.

The other board members are: Jose Luis Martin Gascon who was a Constitutional Convention delegate which framed the 1987 Philippine Constitution which integrates human rights and social justice, taking off from lessons during martial law. Three of the board members have worked with the Commission on Human Rights – Jacqueline Veloria Mejia worked as Executive Director of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for 27 years and takes with her extensive managerial experience; Byron Bocar, a lawyer who was forced to seek refuge in the Netherlands worked at the CHR and in Congress and; Galuasch Ballaho, a Muslim lawyer from Mindanao who worked with the newly established Regional Commission on Human Rights in the ARMM.  Aurora Corazon Alvareda Parong and Erlinda Nable Senturias are medical doctors who visited jails and evacuation centers and rendered services to victims of torture, families of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and internal displacement during martial law. Senturias worked with the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform while Parong worked with Amnesty International. Both worked with the Medical Action Group and have a track record of 3 decades of work on health and human rights.

There are 6 lawyers – Wilfred Asis, Glenda Litong, Gascon, Mejia and Bocar. Litong helped in the gathering of evidence for the class suit filed by martial law victims at the the Hawaii court and has worked with the Women’s Legal Human Rights Bureau and the UP Institute of Human Rights. Wilfred Asis, a lawyer from Mindanao, has been a member of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and the Nationalist Alliance for Justice Freedom and Democracy.

The Human Rights Victims Claims Board’s duty is to qualify those 10,000 martial law victims who will receive reparations using a portion of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth. They have a tedious task awaiting them. They need their energies focused on the work and not on any political issue. We should stop this nonsensical commotion and let the system work, hopefully, to the advantage of the victims.