By JP LOPEZ
MALAYA
MALAYA
He remembers. Bonifacio Ilagan, a playwright, and an activist imprisoned during martial law, stands at the Heroes Shrine in Quezon City where names of martial law victims, including his sister Rizalina Ilagan, are engraved. More than 9,000 victims will be awarded compensation using the $246 million that the Philippine government recovered from the ill-gotten wealth of former President Ferdinand Marcos. (AP PHOTO)
CONGRESS yesterday ratified the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, which would enable victims of human rights abuses under the Marcos administration to claim compensation and reparation from the State.
The bill was ratified first by the House of Representatives at past 5:30 p.m. The Senate followed about 30 minutes later.
It will be transmitted to Malacañang for the signature of President Aquino. Earlier reports said it could be signed on Feb. 25, the anniversary of the 1986 EDSA Revolution where the Marcos government was toppled in a bloodless revolt.
“This is a first of such human rights legislation in the world where a state recognizes a previous administration’s fault against its own people and not only provides for, but also actually appropriates funds for reparation,” Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, said.
A P10-billion fund, plus accrued interest, has been set aside and appropriated for the claims. The amount is part of the funds transferred to the Philippine government by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
Escudero said aside from monetary compensation, the human rights victims could also claim social and psychological assistance from government agencies. The claim will be filed with a Human Rights Claim Board.
He said the amount of compensation shall be proportionate to the gravity of the offense committed, with the Board following a point system in the determination of the award.
Victims who died or who disappeared and are still missing shall be given 10 points. Those who were tortured and/or raped or sexually abused shall be given from six to nine points.
Those who were detained will be given from three to five points while those whose rights were violated under the Act shall be given one to two points.
The Act provides that the Board complete its mandate within two years after the effectivity of the law’s implementing rules.
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RELATED STORY:
One of 9,000 victims remembers
By TERESA CEROJANO
Associated Press
Associated Press
Almost four decades after he was arrested and tortured and his sister disappeared into a maze of Philippine police cells and military houses, playwright Bonifacio Ilagan is finally seeing his suffering officially recognized.
A writer for an underground communist newspaper, Ilagan and thousands like him were rounded up by Ferdinand Marcos’ security forces after he placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972. Detentions, beatings, harassment and killings of the regime’s opponents continued until Marcos was toppled in 1986.
Even though democracy was restored, it would take another 27 years for the Congress to vote on a bill awarding compensation and recognition to martial law victims. The ratification is expected today or tomorrow, said Rep. Neri Colmenares, one of the bill’s authors.
“More than the monetary compensation, the bill represents the only formal, written document that martial law violated the human rights of Filipinos and that there were courageous people who fought the dictatorship,” said a statement from SELDA, an organization of former political prisoners that campaigned for the passage of the bill.
Ilagan’s story is more of a rule than exception among leftist activists of his generation.
“The torture started in the house. We were beaten up, punched and kicked,” he said, recalling a police raid on his residence in April 1974 and the beginning of his two-year detention ordeal. He said he vomited blood after being kicked in the thighs with a bottle and had the soles of his foot burned by an iron.
“The one episode in my torture that I cannot forget was when they ordered me to remove my pants and underwear and they inserted a piece of stick into my penis. ‘Oh my God,’ I said, this is one torture I could not bear,’” the 61-year-old said. He said that interrogators wanted him to decode documents and identify people in pictures that were seized from suspected communist activists.
“Compared to others, mine was not the worst torture,” he said. “The others were electrocuted and injected with truth serum. … But the threats continued.”
Ilagan’s sister, Rizalina, disappeared in 1976 along with nine other activists, many of them students involved in anti-Marcos publications, he said.
His parents died still hoping his sister would turn up alive, but the family has found no closure, Ilagan said.
Lawmakers in two chambers of the Congress last week agreed on a text of the compensation bill, which is set to be officially ratified this week and signed by President Benigno Aquino III.
In 1992, victims won a class action suit against the Marcos estate in Hawaii.
Under the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, the 9,539 victims will be awarded compensation using $246 million that the Philippine government recovered from Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth. But all claims will still have to be evaluated by an independent commission and the amount each will receive will depend of the abuse suffered. — AP
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