Escudero seeks creation of body on missing persons

Senator Francis Escudero on Saturday filed a bill seeking the creation of a commission on missing persons to address involuntary disappearances of activists and suspected enemies of the state. Escudero said the escalating number of missing persons recorded by non-government organizations prompted him to file Senate Bill No. 429. Escudero, chairman of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, said there is already a need to create a commission that will serve as the primary outfit where people can report and coordinate with cases of missing persons. The Commission on Human Rights, however, is opposing the proposed measure. CHR chief Lourdes Quisumbing said the creation of another commission that would address the problem on enforced disappearances might just duplicate the functions of CHR. She said the CHR is already investigating the cases of people who were victims of involuntary disappearance. But Escudero said the commission would serve as the official repository of data related to missing persons. He said that at present, only non-government organizations like FIND and Karapatan serve as the source of systematic recording of missing persons. "The committee recognizes basic difficulties like what Mrs Edita Burgos encountered in her quest for finding his son Jonas," Escudero said. “There is no responsible agency she can pinpoint to give her information that would help her trace Jonas." The committee will be created through legislation and will be automatically chaired by the CHR. "The Committee is in the thick of recommending priority bills along the line of answering extra-judicial killings and involuntary disappearance," Escudero said. “We want the public to see that we in the business of government are doing in the best of our capacity our job to put a stop to these human rights violations." - GMANews.TV