Honoring by remembering: Two daughters endure father’s disappearance
MANILA — For the two daughters of missing activist Felix Salaveria Jr., August is a cruel month. August 23 marks his 67th birthday and he remains missing.
“For me, no days are ever the same. It is always the extremes. There are times that I am okay, and times that are completely bad, disoriented: Why is this happening?,” said Felicia Ferrer, eldest daughter of Felix, in an interview with Bulatlat. It was the first time that her father did not greet her on her birthday in June. “That weighed so heavily on me.”
Salaveria was abducted on August 28, 2024, five days after his birthday. It was Salaveria who reported the enforced disappearance of his friend and fellow activist James Jazmines who was abducted the night of Felix’s birthday celebration on August 23, 2024.
In a fact-finding mission, human rights group Karapatan recovered CCTV footage showing men in plainclothes onboard a Toyota van with plate number VAA5504 abducting Salaveria at 11:03 am on Aug. 28 in Brgy. Cobo, Tabaco City.
“I am a very emotional person and this was exacerbated when my father disappeared,” Gab Ferrer, the younger daughter, said in an interview. “I associate him with trees and things that surround me. There is no day that I have not cried thinking about him. No thing is too small that I cannot associate with my father.”
Gab found traces of her father in strangers — in the shape of their bodies, in the tilt of a head, in the way they moved. “There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of him. And on some days, when I feel I haven’t thought of him enough, I make space for more moments. In my own way, I try to honor him by remembering.”
The two sisters joined the search missions to find their father, especially since the disappearance of Salaveria and Jazmines were announced in public. In a separate Bulatlat story, Gab and Felicia found much more about his advocacies on ecowaste management and recycling, and why he was embraced by a small community in Bicol.
Read: In search of missing father, daughters get to know why he is loved by a small Bicol village
Salaveria was a founding member of the Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino (Katribu Youth) and Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa mga Katutubo (TABAK), both groups known for advocating the rights of indigenous peoples (IP). He was also a founding and active member of Cycling Advocates (Cycad), a group advocating for low-cost, healthy, and non-polluting alternative modes of transportation.
Read: Cyclists, advocates, family call in unison: Surface Felix Salaveria
“He always thought of other people first before himself,” said Felicia. She said that her father would like to buy a new television so his neighbors could watch with him, since they do not have television in their homes. Felicia also recalled that her father sent him a message on one of his birthdays. It was a photo of him with his friends in a nearby waterfall, eating barbecues in a necktie. “He was a groovy person, his selfies were shaky, he asked me: Okay ba yung jaforms ko?” (Felix was referring to his outfit)
For his birthday, Salaveria always wanted cake, pancit, and barbecue which are his favorites, his daughters said. It was not grand, just a small feast and celebration for his family. This year, Gab said, if they still could not be with their father, she would set up a space for him at home, light a candle, take a quiet moment to remember, still holding on to hope for his surfacing.
“To be honest, I don’t want August to come. It is the worst month of the year. The gravity of my father’s disappearance is a lot,” Felicia said.
The Court of Appeals (CA) granted protective writs of amparo and habeas data regarding Salaveria’s disappearance on July 21. The court found that the Philippine National Police (PNP) failed to properly investigate the case and did not exercise the required extraordinary diligence, making them responsible and accountable for the disappearance.
Read: Court scores gov’t failure to probe, surface missing activist Felix Salaveria Jr.
“I could not say that I am fully happy. But of course, like they say, it is still a win especially for these cases. The decision itself acknowledges that our father is a victim of enforced disappearance. He was not simply missing,” Felicia said. “But happiness for me is really to see our father surfaced, for him to return in our lives.”
The two sisters called on the state security forces to execute the CA order. In particular, PNP Chief Gen. Nicolas D. Torre III, former director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), and Bicol-based police officials are named in the decision.
Felicia said that during search missions, the atmosphere inside police stations was never openly hostile but it was steeped in apathy, as if everything was business as usual. Even with CCTV footage showing the violent abduction of her father, she sensed no urgency for the police to find him.
Their legal counsel, Atty. Tony La Viña, noted last year that while they were not professional investigators, they managed to recover concrete evidence that could aid in the search for Salaveria and Jazmines within just three days. They expected far more from the police and other investigative bodies especially if they were to take their mandate seriously.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) also conducted an independent investigation in the police camps. But no new development has been made as of this writing, according to Felicia. The CA ordered the CHR to conduct further parallel investigation and for all the relevant documents to be made available for them and other investigating agencies.
As of this writing, there are 15 cases of enforced disappearance during the Marcos Jr. administration. Since the dictatorship of his father Ferdinand Marcos Sr., there have been more than 1,900 victims.
Despite the enactment of the Anti-Enforced Disappearance Law in 2012, the crime persists because of the repeated failure of redress mechanisms. The families of the victims, national and international human rights groups, and even United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan, recommended to the Philippines government to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance to strengthen the mechanism. This is the only major human rights treaty that the country has not yet ratified.
“Our greater call is for the government to put an end to the practice of enforced disappearance and killing. You should not add up to the piling human rights violations. Every time I read a new activist has been killed or disappeared, it weighs heavy on me, on us,” Felicia ended. (DAA)
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