The activist James Jazmines was biking home in Tabaco City, Albay, on the night of Aug. 23, 2024, when he disappeared in the darkness. He had just come from the birthday celebration of his friend and fellow activist, Felix Salaveria Jr., at a downtown restaurant. 

Salaveria, who had reported Jazmines’ disappearance to the human rights group Karapatan, was himself seized in broad daylight by some men and forced into a white van near his home in Tabaco five days later.

“The whole thing for me was like watching a telenovela, wherein there are antagonists and protagonists, and somebody gets abducted and then the one who reported it gets abducted,” Jazmines’ wife Corazon said at a forum hosted by Karapatan on Aug. 23. “It’s like a scene from a horror film.” 

Jazmines is the younger brother of Alan Jazmines, a political prisoner and former peace adviser of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Karapatan has recorded 15 victims of enforced disappearances, including the two activists, on the watch of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and 1,893 cases from his father and namesake’s regime to the Duterte administration.

‘Zero success’

Republic Act No. 10353, or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act, was enacted 13 years ago, but it has so far failed to surface any of the desaparecidos, much less penalize the perpetrators, their families lamented.

“It has had zero success,” said Edith Burgos, whose son, the farmer-activist Jonas Burgos, has been missing since 2007. “No one has been found because of the law.  No one has been punished because of the law.”

Contrary to the law’s provision that courts should prioritize the issuance of the writs of habeas corpus, amparo and habeas data, it took the Supreme Court eight months before it granted a temporary protection order (TPO) to Jazmines’ family last July.

“Is this swift?” Corazon Jazmines, a volunteer in a nongovernment organization, recalled telling the high court in a letter dated July 2, 2025. She later wondered if the high court could be “cited for contempt” for its slow action.

Besides, she said, she felt “unsafe” when the high court issued the TPO that in effect notified the military about her family’s complaint. “I was safe all along. What was the need?” she said.

Salaveria’s two daughters got a TPO from the Supreme Court last December, and were granted the writs of amparo and habeas data in July.

Throughout the family’s search for Salaveria, the most frustrating part was the Tabaco police’s lack of interest in his case, according to his daughter Felicia Ferrer, a 36-year-old entrepreneur.

“They saw the CCTV but didn’t do anything,” Ferrer said, referring to the village’s closed-circuit TV cameras that captured her father’s abduction. “I’m relieved that the justices saw that in their testimony.”

“I’m not happy that we’re granted the petition. True happiness comes from being with our father, and that he’s here celebrating his 67th birthday,” she added. It was their father’s birthday on Aug. 23. 

The writ of habeas data is a remedy available to any person whose right to privacy in life, liberty or security is violated or threatened by an unlawful act of any official or employee.

It is an independent remedy but it also complements the writs of habeas corpus and amparo, which are aimed at protecting the right to life, liberty and security especially of victims of politically motivated crimes.

Review of law needed

Despite RA 10353, victims of enforced disappearances have been denied their right to inform their respective families, according to lawyer Maria Sol Taule, Karapatan deputy secretary general.

Authorities have also failed to certify the whereabouts of victims to an inquiring person, while prosecutors have failed to disclose to the family the whereabouts of victims brought for inquest proceedings, Taule said. 

She said it’s time Congress reviewed the law, specifically the imposition of penalty for law enforcers who refuse to cooperate with families of desaparecidos despite the courts’ issuance of the writs.   

“There can be no way that these people will just deny, and not be accountable, when it’s been proven during trial that [the victims] are in the custody of the military,” Taule said.

(Citing RA 10353, environmental activists Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro filed charges against military officers whom they accused of abducting them in Bulacan in September 2023. The case is still pending.)

Edith Burgos, for her part, appealed to journalists to keep reporting on the victims “to keep the cases alive,” citing how media coverage has helped draw public attention to her son’s case.     

Signe Poulsen, senior human rights adviser of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who was present at the forum, agreed that a ratification by the Philippines of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances “will hold the state more accountable.” 

“It’s an anomaly that the government has not ratified this convention,” Poulsen said.

But regardless of whether the convention has been ratified, it is the state’s obligation, and not the activists’, to search for disappeared persons, she pointed out.

Addressing the government, Poulsen said: “There has to be a rapid response team when these disappearances are reported initially within the first 48 hours, because that’s when you have a chance of resolving them with a more positive outcome.”

‘Every day is a punishment’

Chuwaley Capuyan, whose father, Dexter Capuyan, was forced into a van by armed men together with his fellow indigenous peoples’ rights advocate Gene Roz “Bazoo” de Jesus in Taytay, Rizal, on April 28, 2023, summed up the experience of families of desaparecidos. 

“Part of loving my father is continuing to search for him. Part of loving my father is knowing to not let go of him,” said Chuwaley Capuyan, 24, a fine arts graduate of the University of the Philippines.   

“One day,” she said, “those who abducted him will face the consequences. One day I will be with him again. But until then, every day is a punishment. We wake up with questions; we go to sleep with deep longing.”