On Int’l Day for Victims of Enforced Disappearance, Panaghiusa calls to surface De Jesus, Capuyan, Salaveria, Jazmines, Balao, Burgos, all Desaparecidos

[TAGALOG] Sa Pandaigdigang Araw ng mga Biktima ng Sapilitang Pagkawala, nananawagan ang Panaghiusa na ilitaw sina De Jesus, Capuyan, Salaveria, Jazmines, Balao, Burgos, at lahat ng Desaparecidos

Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights calls to surface the Indigenous Peoples and advocates who are victims of state-enforced disappearance. We denounce continuing human rights violations under the Marcos Jr. administration by state security forces targeting Indigenous rights defenders. 

These disappearances are not isolated incidents. They are part of a systematic campaign to silence those who resist land dispossession, development aggression, and state violence. 

Chuwaley Capuyan (third from left), daughter of Desaparecido Dexter Capuyan, during a program in front of the Department of Justice in Manila, August 29, 2025. Photo by KR Abalos.

Among the most recent and alarming cases is the abduction of Bontok-Ibaloi-Kankanaey activist Dexter Capuyan and Indigenous rights advocate Gene Roz Jamil “Bazoo” de Jesus. They were forcibly taken on April 28, 2023, in Taytay, Rizal, by elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police. Despite witness testimonies and mounting evidence, authorities refused to act for over two years. Even after the Court of Appeals granted the privileges of the Writ of Amparo on August 12, 2025, recognizing the case as an enforced disappearance, state security forces have yet to take action. 

This same pattern of impunity marked the disappearance of Felix “Jun” Salaveria Jr., an Indigenous rights defender abducted from his home in Tabaco City, Albay, on August 28, 2024. Just days earlier, social researcher and labor rights advocate James Jazmines vanished under similarly suspicious circumstances, also in Tabaco City. Both were under surveillance and taken in what appeared to be coordinated operations.

These cases echo the unresolved disappearances of James Balao, a founding member of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance who was abducted in La Trinidad, Benguet, in 2008, and Jonas Burgos, a farmer-activist taken in broad daylight from the Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City in 2007. In both cases, evidence pointed to military involvement, yet no one has been held accountable.

De Jesus, Capuyan, Salaveria, Jazmines, Balao, and Burgos are defenders of people’s rights, especially Indigenous Peoples' rights to self-determination and ancestral lands. State security forces targeted them because of their advocacies. Instead of upholding Indigenous Peoples' rights, the Philippine government has chosen to respond with intimidation, criminalization, and, in the gravest cases, enforced disappearance. 

Enforced disappearances in the Philippines are systemic and deliberately targeted at human rights defenders, including Indigenous leaders and advocates, making them crimes against humanity. Enforced disappearance is explicitly recognized as such under international laws. 

The Philippines, as a signatory to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), is obligated to investigate, prosecute, and punish perpetrators of these grave violations. Similarly, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to which the country was a State Party until 2019, enforced disappearance is defined as a crime against humanity when carried out systematically.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) affirms the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and resources, as well as their protection from violence, militarization, and forced displacement. The continued pattern of enforced disappearances against Indigenous leaders is therefore a direct assault not only on individual lives but also on collective rights, self-determination, and the survival of Indigenous communities.

Panaghiusa asserts that De Jesus, Capuyan, Salaveria, Jazmines, Balao, and Burgos, and all Desaparecidos must be remembered not only as victims but as defenders of land, life, and dignity. Their abductions are attempts to erase resistance, but their struggle lives on in the communities they served that continue to fight for justice.

On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, we call on the Marcos Jr. administration to immediately surface all Desaparecidos, investigate the full pattern of state-enforced disappearances, hold perpetrators accountable under national and international law, and end the criminalization and harassment of Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates.

Every day of silence deepens the pain of families and communities waiting for the truth. We urge the Indigenous Peoples, civil society, and the international community to amplify the calls: Surface Bazoo De Jesus, Dexter Capuyan, Felix Salaveria Jr., James Jazmines, James Balao, Jonas Burgos, and all Desaparecidos! Stop the attacks against the Indigenous Peoples and advocates! #

Reference:

Rikki Mae Gono

National Coordinator

Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights