Families of victims of enforced disappearances gathered at Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City on All Souls’ Day to remember their missing loved ones and demand truth and justice.
While millions of Filipinos visited cemeteries to honor the departed, the families of the disappeared came together without graves to visit — only photographs and memories.
After the Holy Mass, they held a short program at the church courtyard, offering flowers and placing white ribbons on photos of their loved ones.
Many wore white bandanas inscribed with “Surface All Desaparecidos.”
“While others visit their loved ones’ graves, we visit memories and photographs,” said JL Burgos, chairperson of Desaparecidos. “Remembrance is an act of resistance. Our call is simple: surface all desaparecidos, hold the perpetrators accountable, and end enforced disappearances once and for all.”
Continuing cases under Marcos Jr.
Desaparecidos, an organization of families and friends of victims of enforced disappearances, has marked All Souls’ Day for years by publicly remembering those abducted by suspected state forces and never seen again.
The group said this year’s observance carries renewed urgency as cases continue under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
According to the organization, 14 people have fallen victim to enforced disappearance under the Marcos Jr. administration, adding to the more than 1,900 victims since the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. “From martial law to the present, all remain missing,” it said.
Families left searching for answers
For relatives of the disappeared, the uncertainty of not knowing the fate of their loved ones remains the hardest part.
“The hardest part is the uncertainty,” Burgos said. “You wake up every day wondering where your loved one is — if they’re hungry, hurt, or, worse, dead. And the government, which is supposed to protect its citizens, continues to cover up what happened to our disappeared.”
The Philippines remains a signatory but has not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
More than a decade after the passage of the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 (RA 10353), families say the law has yet to deliver justice or surface victims.
“The government’s silence is complicity,” Burgos said. “Every administration promises to uphold human rights, yet the disappearances continue. Families deserve answers; victims deserve justice.”
Remembering those who never returned
The gathering combined remembrance and protest as families offered flowers, placed white ribbons on photos of the missing, and wore white in solidarity.
“All Souls’ Day is about remembering those who have passed,” Burgos said. “For us, it is also for those who were stolen from us and never returned. We will not stop until every desaparecido is surfaced and every perpetrator is brought to justice.”
