James, Felix, and the 2,586: Abducted by the State, Failed by the Law

So far since Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s administration, 2,586 Filipinos have lived such a life—their bodies abducted by the forceful hands of the forces, their fates hanging in limbo, their families grieving graveless and hoping for a sign of life.

“Remembering Charlie De Rosario: The first desaparecido,” 1971. “Disappearances of Filipinos goes on even under Aquino,” 1988. “The Philippines’ Disappearing Dissidents,” 2008. “Desaparecidos to Noynoy: You’re no different from GMA and Marcos,” 2012.  “47 cases of enforced disappearances under Duterte,” 2018. “Activists keep disappearing in Marcos’s Philippines,” 2023.

Fully untamed and unpunished, the crime then finds us here in the present and in the Bicol region: “Fathers, both cyclists, are the 14th and 15th desaparecidos under Marcos Jr,” Tabaco City, 23 and 28 August 2024.

Upon receiving the news of her husband James Jazmines’ disappearance on 23 August 2024, Cora Jazmines felt like she was watching a telenovela play out in real time. “Nangyayari ba talaga ito sa amin? Nadukot ba talaga siya? […] Sino ba mga bida at kontrabida?”

Questions of heavy hurt and worry have as well plagued the minds of Felicia and Gab Ferrer, whose father Felix Salaveria Jr. met the same fate as his dear friend James just five days after him. “Sino gagawa nito? […] Bakit nila gagawin ‘yun—‘yung ganong karahas na pagdukot? ‘Yun ‘yung pinakamasakit sa akin, kasi ang hirap isipin na tatay mo, ginanon lang.”

Far from a telenovela, this is indeed a lived reality—one that has witnessed the comings and goings of six decades and eight presidencies, and the sufferings of those it chose not to spare. Far from ending said sufferings, which we had hoped to achieve with the Republic Act No. 10353 or the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012—the very first in Asia—the list of desaparecidos only continues to lengthen. Today marks the third month since James and Felix’s abduction—each day adding fuel to the scourge, urging hope to come forth and consume it.

One in faith

“Ayokong matorment ako ng negative things […] so I ask people to send me positive energies, [so] parang I can withstand this uncertainty […] Gusto ko maging hopeful,” Cora Jazmines shares in an interview with ThePILLARS. In the conscious effort to do so, she recounts with us ever so fondly her memories with her 63-year-old husband, with whom she has been united for 35 years now in their fervent desire for social change and sustainable living.

Among these is how James does his share of domestic duties, manages things from finances to laundry in a systematic manner, and becomes his daughter’s number one cheerleader in her career. Additionally, Cora finds his penchant for no-bake cakes and gift-giving amusing; and laughs at how barely she could catch up to her husband’s fast-paced reading, as opposed to how slow he is when it comes to showering. All these and other endearing acts mark James as dedicated to his family as he is to the community.

James’ community work, materialized through the Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center, is focused on labor welfare. This nongovernmental organization (NGO) which he helped set up empowers workers and trains them in writing about their struggles and publishing their own newsletters. His knack for writing and information technology (IT), furthermore, has served him well in serving the people—as editor of the League of Filipino Students’ Commitment, as information officer of Kilusang Mayo Uno, and as a freelance IT worker, oftentimes for various NGOs.

Letters and phone calls serve as bridges for when Cora and James are apart, as field duty often calls the latter where it’s bound. For the last two years or so, James has been residing in Tabaco City, Albay—a land that he has bicycled around and through with his dear friend, Felix Salaveria Jr, who has settled there since 2021.

Felix, as his daughters Gab and Felicia warmly recall, is as dependent and reliable as a father could be. “Yung tatay ko kasi yung lagi kong tanungan sa mga bagay na parang hindi ko alam yung mga gagawin o sagot,” Felicia explains. For the both of them, Felix is a driver, repairman, copyeditor, gardener, teacher, and many more all rolled up into one.

It then comes as no surprise that Felix’s seeds of love had grown not only in Gab and Felicia but also in Barangay Cobo where he lives. According to residential anecdotes, Felix has led waste segregation and compost efforts, planted with others trees by the riverside, built a community garden, and always lent a hand for the people around him. He is also a founding member of Cycling Advocates (CYCAD); and in the 1980s, he was active in groups that fought for indigenous peoples’ rights.

With Felix in this fight was human rights lawyer Atty. Tony La Viña who, by 30 years or so later, would go on to handle the case of his enforced disappearance, which, along with that of James’, is believed to be highly operationalized and executed by state security forces.

One in fate

On 23 August 2024, a dinner to celebrate Felix Salaveria’s 67th year of life saw him get together with cycling friends, among them James Jazmines. By 10 p.m., they bid goodbye and went their own ways, with James’ not being too far off the venue. This made Felix anticipate his early arrival home and a text from him confirming so, as per their usual habit of letting the other know once they’re home.

However, such a text never came, and so two days later, Felix took matters into his own hands. This is when he would discover that James never arrived home. Instead, he was forced into a van by a group of men who had been parked waiting since 8 p.m. that evening. This incident was reported to Karapatan, whose Bicol chapter—along with its paralegals, Altermidya, and Cora Jazmines—arrived at Tabaco City to conduct a search mission on the morning of 28 August.

In that same morning, just hours before the search team could arrive, it was then Felix who suffered the same modus of abduction in broad daylight—with CCTV and residents bearing witness to the plainclothes men, the van’s plate number, and the swiftness by which it all transpired. By 7 p.m. that same day, as testified by witnesses, a group of uniformed policemen entered Felix’s house and took away his personal belongings.

According to human rights group Karapatan, all this and more point to the high probability of this being a state-perpetrated operation. Atty. Tony La Viña, who himself has worked on the cases of some other desaparecidos and also teaches at the Ateneo de Naga College of Law, echoes this very sentiment: “We know a lot of things about who took them—looks like military intelligence or police intelligence. It was a big operation involving several vehicles, several people.”

Slave to the pattern

“Several vehicles, several people” are what usually constitute an enforced disappearance, thus grounding Karapatan, the families, and their legal counsels in firmness of the state’s deep involvement.

And so goes the age-old pattern perpetual since Martial Law days: the state harasses and surveils the target prior; the state employs men and vehicles for the looking, tailing, and taking; and once that’s over with, surfaced or unsurfaced, the state evades accountability and acts oblivious to the law.

Within this pattern, specific parts bleed parallel across many other involuntary disappearance cases. One is the stolen plate number of the vehicle that nabbed Felix, as also seen in the much-publicized case of Jonas Burgos in 2007. Moreover, mirroring the footage of Felix’s abduction is that of Armand Dayoha and Dyan Gumanao’s in Cebu City, January 2023. In it, glaring was their resistance against the persistence, and even more so was the bystanders’ stillness in the face of it. Surfaced after their seven-day ordeal, Dayoha and Gumanao testified that they were taken by the police because they were activists.

This is a circumstance they share with Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro who, 17 days after their abduction, surfaced for a live press conference on the 19th of September 2023. Their script? To say that they voluntarily surrendered. But in a sheer display of guts—in the faces of the government and military officials, no less—the two environmental defenders went off-script, revealing that they were indeed abducted and coerced into surrendering.

But it always doesn’t end like this; and it would factually be wrong to say that it ends—for surfaced or unsurfaced, as long as no one is held accountable, enforced disappearances are a continuing crime.

And so it continues. And so frustratingly it stands that three months since James and Felix’s disappearances, still no leads have been found in the investigation, no less a perpetrator to answer for the crime. This, despite the existence of CCTV footage and witnesses; and this, due to the law enforcers’ lack of urgency and feigned ignorance of the law that the families and Karapatan have themselves decried.

“Na-exhaust na ba? […] How long will it take them? What will it take [for] them to speed things up? Syempre government sila ‘eh. Nasa kanila [ang] lahat ng means,” voices Cora Jazmines.

Home to impunity

Another point in the pattern takes crucial shape in James Jazmines and his family. The brother that he is to Alan Jazmines—a former consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) now in hiding upon the suspension of peace talks in 2017—has subjected him and his family to harassment and surveillance. Even Cora herself had not been spared, as she had been red-tagged and erroneously referred to as Alan Jazmines’ wife.

When late 2017 saw Former President Rodrigo Duterte sign proclamations that terminated peace talks with the communist party and labelled them terrorist groups—ending a tumultuous 31-year ordeal—the absence of a peace agreement between the two parties had never been more arrestingly clear. Such an absence, according to Atty. Tony La Viña, gives root to the impunity among state agents, thus rendering humanitarian laws like the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 essentially worthless. Since it was signed 12 years ago, no one has ever been convicted for any of the 2,586 desaparecidos.

“There’s still social conflict going on, so therefore, the military [and] the police feel they have [the] impunity to go after anyone who is dissenting [or] anyone who is organizing, even if they’re not terrorist members of the communist party,” states La Viña.

As impunity sucks the strength out of the law, its arms would prove too futile to protect the families who had hoped to cling to them: “Wala talaga siyang pangil,” Gab Ferrer would say. And as the law gets stripped of its claws and fangs by those who are supposed to sharpen them, it becomes so infuriating “to the point na nakakatawa na lang—parang pa’no ‘to? Anong mangyayari sa atin?”

“Parang ‘di ka aasa sa batas kundi dun sa solidarity o sama-samang pagkilos pa rin ng tao—‘yung parang magpressure at magpanagot dun sa mga gumagawa ng paglalabag,” Felicia Ferrer answers, as if almost a response to Gab.

All for the fight

And so drawn out of the rage towards the state is the collective movement to heal it of its ills.

“So this single incident created fear. Naghasik ng lagim sa maraming tao na lalo tuloy hindi nila kayang ipaglaban ang rights nila,” Cora shares, challenging campus journalists to write more about human rights and to keep campaigning for them amidst the pervasive climate of fear.

“Hindi totoong may karapatang pantao sa Pilipinas hanggang ngayon,” laments Felicia who, with her sister Gab and in equally ardent vein as Cora, calls for the youth to always defy these human rights violations in a country that has already seemingly normalized them. “So parang sana, solid yung pagtutol everytime na may ganiyang mga pangyayari,” hopes Gab.

These appeals are echoed by Atty. Tony La Viña, urging citizens to take part in campaigns and petitions, as well as for witnesses to come out and speak up. “Anything to keep this issue alive kasi we easily forget the disappeared—precisely because they disappeared. […] So by keeping them in our consciousness, we help them,” he says.

“It’s something that you can do as a human being to other human beings. […] This is an evil we have to fight, an evil that should be changed. And I’m actually confident we can change it.”