Aquino urged to act on case of 2 missing for 4 years

ILOILO CITY, Philippines—Families, friends and colleagues of two missing Iloilo activists marked the fourth year of their disappearance on Tuesday with renewed calls for authorities to surface them.

Protesters joined a march from the Iloilo provincial capitol to the Plazoleta Gay intersection to hold a brief program to demand government action on the case of Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado and Nilo Arado.

Protesters, led by the Save Luisa and Nilo Movement (SLNM), Samahan ng mga Ex- Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda) and Panay Alliance-Karapatan, called on President Aquino to be true to his campaign promise of reforms by mobilizing government personnel and resources to find the missing activists.

“It has been four years of agonizing, searching and waiting for any news about them. Will they ever find justice?” Arado’s wife Rosemarie told the Inquirer on Tuesday.

The protesters released balloons bearing a streamer calling for government action.

Dominado and Arado remained missing after their vehicle was waylaid and they were abducted by unidentified armed men on April 12, 2007, in Barangay Cabanbanan in Oton, Iloilo. Dominado was the spokesperson in Panay of Selda, a group of former political detainees, while Arado was the regional chair of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.

Their companion, human rights worker Jose Ely Garachico, was shot and wounded but was left behind by the abductors.

Militant groups have accused the military of being behind the abduction but this has been denied repeatedly by military officials.

Dominado, one of the most prominent political detainees in Western Visayas during the Marcos dictatorship, was among the martial law victims entitled to $1,000 each from the Marcos estate.