{"id":11315,"date":"2025-05-23T00:55:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T23:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=11315"},"modified":"2025-05-22T19:35:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T18:35:30","slug":"targeting-dissent-enforced-disappearances-under-marcos-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/targeting-dissent-enforced-disappearances-under-marcos-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting dissent: Enforced disappearances under Marcos Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pauline Joy Banjawan, a volunteer campaign coordinator for party-list Bayan Muna in Southern Tagalog and an organizer<\/a> for the urban poor rights group Kadamay Southern Tagalog, was reported<\/a> missing on April 26, 2025, after she reported being followed by suspicious individuals in the town of Sto. Tomas in Batangas province.<\/p>\n

Banjawan last messaged<\/a> her mother at 3:00 p.m. that day, claiming that \u201csuspicious people\u201d were tailing her. She was in Sto. Tomas as part of Bayan Muna\u2019s campaign activities for the 2025 midterm elections.<\/p>\n

According to the Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Banjawan was allegedly abducted<\/a> by members of the 59th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines before being turned over to the police after two days. She now faces<\/a> charges of alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives and was reportedly subjected to physical and psychological torture.<\/p>\n

Banjawan\u2019s arrest was<\/a> baseless and \u00a0part of the current regime\u2019s \u201congoing militarization designed to suppress genuine opposition ahead of the May elections,\u201d\u00a0 said Rev. Luisito Saliendra, spokesperson of the human rights group Karapatan Southern-Tagalog .<\/p>\n

Banjawan\u2019s\u00a0 younger sister, Fatima,\u00a0 a women\u2019s rights organizer under Gabriela Southern Tagalog, was also arrested<\/a> by elements of the military on trumped-up charges while investigating the conditions of peasant communities in Camarines Sur in August 2024. Garbiela Southern Tagalog has condemned<\/a> her arrest and cited its similarities with other incidents.<\/p>\n

The human rights group Karapatan is alarmed<\/a> at the fact that enforced disappearances are among the fastest rising human rights violations under the Marcos Jr. regime.<\/p>\n

Under Marcos Jr., the AMP (Aktionsb\u00fcndnis Menschenrechte-Philippinen\/German Action Network Human Rights-Philippines) – recorded<\/a> 12 cases of enforced disappearances of human rights defenders between 2023 and 2024, of which five individuals remain missing until today. For victims and their families, obtaining justice is an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, relatives and friends of the activists Gene Bazoo de Jesus and Dexter Capuyan commemorated<\/a> the second year of their enforced disappearance as they celebrated Cordillera Day last April. Dexter\u2019s daughter Chuwaley recalled<\/a> that on April 28, 2023, her father and Bazoo were abducted in Taytay, Rizal. The search continues, she said<\/a>, now with a writ of amparo filed at the Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Raffy Lerma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pauline Joy Banjawan, a volunteer campaign coordinator for party-list Bayan Muna in Southern Tagalog and an organizer for the urban poor rights group Kadamay Southern Tagalog, was reported missing on April 26, 2025, after she reported being followed by suspicious individuals in the town of Sto. Tomas in Batangas province. Banjawan last messaged her mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58,59,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11315"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11355,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11315\/revisions\/11355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}