The Ilocos-Cordillera Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Chadli Molintas Command (Ilocos-Cordillera Regional Operational Command) of the New People’s Army (NPA), condemn in the strongest terms the perpetration of enforced disappearances by the fascist regime of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, and challenge the Philippine government to fully respect the rights of civilians and hors de combat.

Dexter Capuyan and Gene Roz Jamil “Bazoo” De Jesus are victims of enforced disappearance. They were abducted on April 28, 2023. They have since been unlawfully deprived of their liberty, detained incommunicado in unknown locations, and possibly tortured or subjected to cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment.

Continually carried out in the various regions of the country, enforced disappearance is being perpetrated by no other than the tyrannical Commander-in-Chief, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, through his pro-US imperialist state’s military and police forces. Marcos Jr and his forces should be held accountable for violating their own Philippine government’s Republic Act No. 10353, the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012.

The aforementioned law recognizes the right of Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo De Jesus to be treated humanely and surfaced immediately by their abductors–who initially identified themselves as operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG). If the two are accused of any crime, they should be allowed to face the charges against them in open court.

Furthermore, the law obliges the government’s Commission on Human Rights to heed the urgent calls of the Capuyan and De Jesus families to mount an impartial investigation into the enforced disappearance of the two victims, locate their whereabouts, and have them surfaced as soon as possible.

Through its propagandists in Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), the state’s National Task Force-End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has broadcasted the information that Dexter Capuyan was a ranking NPA officer and, at the time of his abduction, was in Metro Manila to seek medical treatment for complications to a chest injury that he had sustained in a March 2023 firefight in Balbalan, Kalinga between the NPA and the AFP. Through SMNI, the state has thus portrayed Dexter Capuyan as hors de combat.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL), applicable to both international and non-international or domestic armed conflicts, prohibits attacks on hors de combat–persons whom injury, capture, or similar circumstance has taken out of the fight. This is specifically provided by Rule 47. International Humanitarian Law also protects civilians from attack. This is specifically provided by Rules 5 and 6, and by numerous other IHL Rules. The protection of civilians is, in fact, the cornerstone of the IHL Rules.

Bazoo De Jesus is a civilian.

Violations of the Rules protecting civilians and hors de combat are defined by International Humanitarian Law as war crimes. The enforced disappearance of a civilian and a person rendered hors de combat itself constitutes a war crime.

We urge Marcos Jr., his military and police forces, and the various agencies of the state to respect the rights of Dexter Capuyan and Roz Jamil “Bazoo” De Jesus. We demand that they surface the two immediately, without delay!