STATEMENT
May 5, 2025
The Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) expresses its support for the Capuyan and De Jesus families, and stands in solidarity with them and indigenous people’s networks’ demands to surface desaparecidos Dexter Stewart Capuyan and Gene Roz Jamil “Bazoo” De Jesus.
CPDG also calls out the Philippine government for failing to enforce and implement with determined will the 2012 anti-enforced disappearance law and for continuing to disregard the recommendation by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council the Philippines ratification of the International Covenant on Enforced Disappearance.
In April 2023, Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo De Jesus were abducted by alleged agents of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Taytay, Rizal. Before their enforced disappearance, the Bontoc-Ibaloi-Kankanaey Dexter Capuyan was red-tagged by the government, alleging him as one of the leaders of the New People’s Army (NPA) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). He was also among the 600 individuals named in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) petition to proscribe the CPP-NPA as terrorists. Bazoo De Jesus, on the other hand, is an Indigenous Rights Activist, working with the Philippine task Force on Indigenous Peoples Rights (TFIP) to fight for rights of one of society’s most marginalized sectors.
The recent case of state-sponsored abductions of labor rights defender James Jazmines and Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino (Katribu) founding member Felix Salaveria Jr., also happened after surveillance of state forces.
Today, May 5, the Court of Appeals held a hearing on the case of their Writs of Amparo and Habeas Data issued last September 9 2024 by the Supreme Court in a resolution which also includes a temporary protection order (TPO) for the families of De Jesus and Capuyan. The TPO will prevent further harm and intimidation to the families from the respondents that includes high-ranking officials from the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and individuals Lorraine Badoy and Jeffrey Celiz.
These enforced disappearances are part of a wider attack on human rights defenders, where state-backed red-tagging of activists bring evident harm to its targets. The systemic silencing of dissent obstructs fundamental freedoms and erodes democratic spaces.
Read Katribu’s statement here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15oUUYE5XW/
Read Commission on Human Rights statement on the resurfaced HRD Pauline Joy Banjawan https://chr.gov.ph/statement-of-the-commission-on-human-rights-on-the-case-of-the-resurfaced-urban-poor-organizer-in-batangas/