CHR renews call to solve case of 2 UP students missing since 2006

(Updated 11:48 p.m.) The Commission on Human Rights on Friday renewed its call to solve the case of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, two University of the Philippines students who have been missing since 2006.
 

The CHR said the two students — believed abducted by military agents and whom witnesses have said were detained, tortured, and raped in a military camp — "are but two of the many so-called desaparecidos who have gone missing and are never seen or heard from again."

 

"The Commission reiterates that enforced disappearance is a grave violation of a human’s right to life, liberty and security and should not be tolerated in a just, humane, and democratic society," CHR Human Rights Information and Communication Division officer-in-charge Banuar Falcon said in a press statement.

Activist group Hustisya also marked the ninth year since Empeño and Cadapan disappeared.

"For nine years, we have lit hundreds of candles. For nine years we carried their photographs etched on posters and tarpaulins to every rally and dialogue with authorities. Their pictures are now worn out and tattered. Their families and friends who were left behind have grown old, but the search for the missing never tires," the group said in a statement.

The group also criticized President Benigno Aquino III, saying his administration has also committed "abuses and atrocities against the people."

"This government continues to deny the existence of political prisoners while there are 527 of them languishing in jails on the basis of trumped up charges.... Harassment, surveillance, political repression, widespread militarization continue to threaten the people," Hustisya also said.

Retired Army general Jovito Palparan Jr., whom a witness says was behind the disappearance and abuse of the two students, has been charged with kidnapping with serious illegal detention before the Malolos Regional Trial Court.

Palparan was arrested in 2014 after three years in hiding. He was given the monicker "The Butcher” for alleged human rights violations wherever he was assigned.

Palparan has repeatedly denied involvement in the students' disappearance. — JDS/JJ GMA News