Longtime Karapatan chair Amaryllis Hilao-Enriquez dies at 68

Karapatan's longtime chairperson and human rights defender Amaryllis Hilao-Enriquez passed away on Sunday (California time) at the age of 68, according to her daughter.

In a Facebook post, Andrea Enriquez said her mother died at 12:05 noon in Covina, California, United States.

“She is reunited with her sister, Liliosa, who died under martial law in the Philippines. My mother dedicated her life to fighting for justice and human rights. She was a beautiful person, funny, intelligent, brave, and strong. She was loved and will be greatly missed,” Andrea said.

In a message to GMA News Online, Andrea said she and her sister had to bring Enriquez to California in 2017 for treatment for her Parkinson's disease, and to personally take care of her.

“Since 2017 pa namin siya kinuha ni ate kasi nga po may sakit na siya. Kung hindi po siya nagkasakit eh hindi po talaga siya payag pumunta dito,” she said.

(My sister and I took her to the US in 2017 because she was already sick. If she hadn't gotten sick, she wouldn't have come with us to California.)

According to Karapatan’s website, Enriquez was a Martial Law survivor who led SELDA, an organization of former political prisoners, in the filing and proceedings of the suit against the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in the US Federal Court in Honolulu, Hawaii.

She also led Martial Law victims and their families for the enactment into law of the compensation bill that would indemnify and recognize the victims of Martial Law.

According to "Dark Legacy: Human Rights Under the Marcos Regime" by Alfred McCoy and reports by Amnesty International, 3,200 victims of extrajudicial killings, 77,000 political detainees, 3,500 torture victims, and more than 700 disappearances were recorded from 1975 to 1985. —KBK, GMA News