of the Philippines the criminal justice system is - Article 2

92
VICTIM: Rogelio Concepcion
INCIDENT: Disappearance
ALLEGED PERPETRATORS:
24th IB personnel
DATE: 6 March 2006
AHRC UA-087-2006
UP-052-2006
“
I am in no
organisation,
I am just
disgusted by
this—
corrupt
bastards!
—David Twigg, UK”
Rogelio Concepcion:
Labour leader dragged from front of workplace
Labour leader Rogelio Concepcion disappeared on 6 March 2006
after being abducted by men riding on a motorcycle as he left the
Solid Development Corporation factory in Barangay Mataas na
Parang, San Ildefonso, Bulacan where he worked, to go home.
Concepcion’s fellow workers were frightened and fled to safety
upon seeing the armed men seizing him. None have shown
interest in cooperating with the authorities in investigations as
they also fear for their lives.
Concepcion’s family fears that he could have been abducted
and killed by elements of the 24th Infantry Battalion of the
Philippine Army. Marissa reportedly spotted a van parked near
their house on the afternoon of March 6. The van stayed until
late evening.
In November 2005, elements of the 24th IB entered the Solid
Development Corporation factory and conducted a “military
census” among the workers, then remained stationed in the
compound. Concepcion and his colleague, Ador Vasalio, were
reportedly monitored by the military since. Concepcion was
officer-in-charge of the Solid Development Corporation Workers
Association (SDCWA) and Vasalio its former president. In May
2005 the SDCWA had staged a strike because the management
refused to recognise the union, despite a Department of Labor
and Employment decision declaring the union “sole and exclusive
bargaining agent”.
The AHRC released a statement on the abduction of
Concepcion and another victim of forced disappearance, Joey
Estriber (see below) on March 20:
On 3 March 2006, Joey Estriber was waiting for a lift home in Baler,
Aurora, when four armed men suddenly dragged him into a nearby van
and drove off. Days later, Rogelio Concepcion was also forcibly
disappeared in San Ildefonso, Bulacan on March 6. According to witnesses,
two men riding on a motorcycle grabbed him as he left his work at the
Solid Development Corporation factory. Concepcion is a labour leader,
while Estriber is a staff member of the Bataris Formation Center. The
men, their families and colleagues had been followed by military
personnel, and threatened and harassed prior to their abductions. There
is little to suggest that serious criminal inquiries into their disappearances
will follow: to date none of the possible perpetrators among the military
are known to have been investigated. The two cases are already following
the familiar pattern known to people throughout the Philippines, with
little or no investigation and an absence of witnesses and accompanying
evidence leading to “case closed” without result.
One reason for this failure is that there is no law prohibiting forced
disappearance in the Philippines, despite the frequency of blatant
abductions there. Without a law, relatives of men like Estriber and
Concepcion have little hope for adequate and effective investigations
followed by prosecutions and punishment of the perpetrators, as well as
compensation. They have nowhere to turn. Although the proposed Act
Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearance (HB 1556) is pending before the parliament, it has been
94
article 2 • February 2007 Vol. 6, No. 1