EDITORIAL - Disappeared

On June 26, 2006, University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan were kidnapped by gunmen from a house they were renting in Hagonoy, Bulacan. Witnesses testified that Empeño, 22, and Cadapan, 29, who was reportedly pregnant, were taken to military camps and detachments in Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Zambales, where they were raped and tortured.

The students remain missing and their bodies have not been found. In June last year, the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado and S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio for the UP students’ kidnapping and serious illegal detention. Palparan, dubbed “The Butcher” by human rights advocates, and the two others were sentenced to life in prison, with the CA raising the penalty by removing their eligibility for parole.

This case comes to mind amid reports that two community organizers were snatched last Saturday night in Bataan. Rights and environmental groups said four persons in a gray sport utility vehicle kidnapped Jonila Castro, 21, and Jhed Tamano, 22, in front of the Orion Water District in Barangay Lati in Orion town. Castro is a community organizer of AKAP KA Manila Bay while Tamano is a program coordinator of the Ecumenical Bishops Forum’s community and church program for Manila Bay.

Human rights and environmental groups said the two were working with fishers opposing reclamation projects in Manila Bay. The Marcos administration has suspended 22 reclamation projects in the bay pending a review of their environmental impact in Metro Manila and parts of Central Luzon particularly in Bulacan and Pampanga, where floods have refused to subside for many weeks now. The government is also assessing the progress of the Supreme Court’s writ of continuing mandamus issued on Dec. 18, 2008, directing 13 government agencies to clean up, rehabilitate and preserve the bay.

AKAP KA Manila Bay said the two had been experiencing harassment and intimidation by unidentified persons in civilian clothes. They were preparing for consultations with affected communities in Bataan before they were snatched, the group said.

There could be a benign explanation for the disappearance of Castro and Tamano. Obviously, the truth can be established only by finding the two, and catching whoever might have snatched them. Those pushing for bay reclamation themselves should want the truth to be known, and should not want their projects to be tainted by the specter of desaparecidos.