President Aquino Should Sign Landmark Disappearances Law

October 18th, 2012 by Noemi Lardizabal-Dado

Philippines, Human Rights Watch said today. The Philippine Congress passed the bill, the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012, on October 16, 2012, and sent it to the president for signature.

The law, if enacted, would be the first to criminalize enforced disappearances in Asia, Human Rights Watch said. It would demonstrate the Philippine government’s commitment to address human rights abuses such as the abduction and killing by the security forces of activists, environmentalists, and journalists.

“Enforced disappearances, often involving torture and extrajudicial killings, have been a blot on the Philippines’ human rights record since the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “To this day, activists are still being abducted by the authorities and ‘disappeared.’ This law would be an important step towards ending these abuses.”

The Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 reflects recommendations long made by domestic human rights organizations. It defines an 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, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places such person outside the protection of the law.” This definition is derived from international human rights standards.

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