Two months since state security forces forcibly took away Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo De Jesus, government agencies are yet to take concrete action towards their reappearance. Instead, what one hears are outrageously nonsensical lies by the administration’s unofficial yet primary disinformation machinery SMNI.

For revolutionaries needing to watch a video of rabid anti-Communists spewing off absurdities, it is a self-inflicted pain. But even more painful is the rage-inducing torment when one listens to these individuals twist all logic in Capuyan and De Jesus’ enforced disappearance just to malign the national democratic movement. They say rehash that ridiculous accusation that the CPP-NPA-NDFP abducts and kills its own members. Afterwards, the hosts merely laugh off their disappearance thus rudely laughing off the fears and frustration of their families and friends.

The news anchors, who themselves are unethically also the source of the so-called news, weave alibis and justification as to why it can’t be state forces that carried out the abduction. But it’s a deliberate muddling of the point. The bottom line remains that the two are missing for two months now and government units remain inutile regarding their disappearance.

And yet, there are details from the families’ own limited fact-finding missions that could have been the starting point of any formal investigation. That is, if the many investigative bodies of the government so chooses to lift a finger to address the growing number of enforced disappearances since Marcos Junior became president of the reactionary regime. Government inaction regarding the rising number of desaparecidos under this regime speaks volumes of reality more than the SMNI can in its dogged effort to appear as a legitimate news provider.

The peoples of the Cordillera is no stranger to the government turning a deaf ear to their calls but this one takes the cake. This is criminal neglect by a government that consistently proves itself uncaring for the indigenous peoples, even in the face of actual sons and daughters of the Cordillera calling for the return of their loved ones. And when fascism is unleashed, not just individuals but families and communities are affected.

The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front thus condemns in the strongest possible terms the abduction and continued absence of two of its own. Capuyan belongs to his Bontoc-Ibaloi-Kankanaey tribe and family while De Jesus is an upstanding son of the indigenous communities he has served since his student days in UP Baguio. They belong to the people and they must be surfaced now. The government, through SMNI and its other channels of disinformation, can laugh all they want or act dismissive all they want but the peoples of Cordillera see through their lies and their laughter. Every day without Capuyan and De Jesus is marked with the reaffirmation that the government is wholly self-serving and totally inutile, is scared of its own people and needs to be dismantled. Every day without Capuyan and De Jesus further proves the need for an armed revolution.

Surface Capuyan and De Jesus! Surface all desaparecidos!

Defend human rights and indigenous peoples rights! Defend ancestral land, life and dignity!

Advance the people’s democratic war! Join the New People’s Army!