Gov’t asks UN panel to remove over 600 from list of disappeared

The Philippine government has asked a United Nations committee to remove over 600 Filipinos from its list of victims of enforced disappearances.

According to Chino Gaston's report on "State of the Nation with Jessica Soho", a government delegation has asked the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to remove the names.

The government panel claimed that most of the missing persons on the list were victims of the internal purge of the Communist Party of the Philippines between 1983 and 1986.

The delegation led by Undersecretary Severino Catura of the Presidential Human Rights Committee and Armed Forces Deputy Chief of staff for Operations Brigadier General Antonio Parlade.

The AFP has reported to the UN panel what it called the improving human rights situation over the past five years.

The human rights group Karapatan has opposed the removal of the names of over 600 victims from the UN list.

According to the group, there were 759 cases of enforced disappearances under the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, 821 under Corazon Aquino, 39 under Fidel Ramos, 26 under Joseph Estrada, 206 under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and 29 under Benigno Aquino III. —NB, GMA News