From the Philippines: Forensic Investigation of Human Rights Abuses
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009By Damcelle Cortes
Damcelle Cortes is an Asia Foundation Program Officer in the Philippines. She can be reached at damcellet@asiafound.org.
For almost three years, Erlinda Cadapan has been searching for her daughter, Sherlyn. A student of the University of the Philippines, Sherlyn was abducted in June 2006 with another female student and a farmer in Bulacan, a province a few hours north of Manila. Like any mother longing for her child, Erlinda has been exhausting all means to find her daughter. Camp searches, court petitions, advocacy meetings, and exhumations have become part of her grueling daily routine. She would rather face her daughter’s death than live in complete uncertainty about what happened to her. In 2008, when Erlinda heard that authorities in Pangasinan Province found a corpse of a woman of similar build as Sherlyn, she insisted on recovering the body. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), along with a human rights organization, conducted an exhumation. But upon investigation, they found the remains were of another young woman, not Sherlyn.
Erlinda is among the hundreds of mothers and relatives of desaparecidos who are in a devastating, never-ending quest to find their loved ones. In their situation, investigations that provide leads, searches, and exhumations that could eventually direct them to their missing kin are paramount. Unfortunately, relatives of the missing cannot confidently rely on the authorities to assist them. Security forces are often implicated in the commission of abuses. Cognizant that the state cannot renege from its primary duty of protecting guaranteed rights and freedoms, the 1987 Constitution aptly created the Commission on Human Rights as an independent body to investigate, report, and monitor human right violations.
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