Human Rights
Today, August 30, the world remembers the disappeared, people who are victims of enforced disappearances or the desaparecidos.
A movement in Facebook is brewing, asking users to remove their profile pictures as a sign of solidarity to all victims and family of desaparecidos. As a journalist and an activist, I myself has stories of people who are victims of enforced disappearance, and victimized of government-instigated abductions.
One time, while investigating the story of the murder of Fr. Cecilio Lucero of Northern Samar (Bulatlat: Marked for death, October 17, 2009), we came across a victim of military abduction and a survivor of summary execution by the Philippine military. His experience was so heart-wrenching, and to think that he was but a lowly farmer going about his own business. It was reasoned that it was because of him that Father Lucero was killed, because the priest would not want to surrender him to the military.
During the 15th Lopez Jaena Fellowship on Community Journalism, we also talked with victims of military abduction, as well as a witness and the family of activists Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan. The witness told his story, how he was abducted and kept as prisoner by the military and what he saw of the girls.
And then there's Felicidad "Shiela" Katalbas, a personal friend who disappeared in 2007. She was a full-time community organizer working with farmers in Negros island. She was a constant figure at the office where I and fellow student activists frequented during my university days in Silliman University. She would ask us for used school bags, clothes, and other stuffs that we could donate to children of poor farmers living in the mountain villages of the island. And she would tell us of stories that would further inflame our desire for change. In 2007, on broad daylight and right beside a government hospital, Shiela was abducted by men believed to be military officers, grabbing her and forcing her into a silver van accompanied by a pick-up truck.
From what I know, she had a relative who's in the military so it never dawned on me that she will be a victim of enforced disappearance.
On this day, let us remember the stories of these victims of enforced disappearance, whose only crime was to sympathize with the oppressed and work for justice and peace.
For more on the Philippine's disappeared, visit the Ulinig Exhibit site of Desaparecidos.
Here is a wonderful song for victims of enforced disappearance, their families, and friends who is keeping their hopes up in finally finding them and keeping their struggles alive, entitled Desap by Filipino artist Karl Ramirez.
Video courtesy of Karl Ramirez | Photo courtesy of Karapatan and Desaparecidos.
CEBU, Philippines
"We want to show off to the world a good recipe from (Cebu)," he told The FREEMAN, adding that many of the recipes of the food enjoyed by Cebuanos are difficult to come by "because they are treasured by the people who cook them." For this Hauri said that Cebu Goes Culinary hoped to draw those recipes out and encourage the Cebuanos to show off their specialties.
Participating schools included, among others, Bacolod City's La Consolacion College, University of Cebu - Main, Banilad, and Lapu Lapu - Mandaue Campuses, Northeastern Cebu Colleges, Southwestern University, Philippine School of Culinary Arts, and St. Therese-MTC Colleges-La Fiesta Site.
