MANILA, (PNA)–The Commission on Human Right (CHR), together with representatives of other government agencies and martial law victims conducted a workshop on archiving with Embassy of Argentine Republic, Swisspeace, and Embassy of Switzerland to help establish a centralized archive in the Philippines.
The three-day workshop, held Friday at Eurotel, Quezon City and dubbed as “Archives for Memory: The Experience of Argentina,” focused on sharing of testimonies by the peoples of Argentina on how they managed to successfully help the families of victims of human rights violations find missing family members to end the search and put an end to their suffering.
According to Myrna Jimenez, CHR martial law files project manager, the workshop was conducted for a clearer understanding among workshop participants on how Argentinians cope-up with a dictatorial government,and help attendees facilitate the speedy archiving of martial law victims.
Jimenez said that part of the workshop tackles the archiving process wherein the participants decided to collect accurate historical accounts of political prisoners and survivors of martial law to document stories of missing and killed persons during that time through archiving process.
Josefina Nacif, a lawyer from Argentina, disclosed that their country and the Philippines share the same experience of having a dictatorial government from 1970’s to 1980’s where human rights abuses were both felt.
Nacif said that they are happy to contribute in influencing the Philippines’ martial law victims to be given recognition and repatriation as well.
“The first measure that we adopted was the granting of pension to the spouses and children of disappeared persons. The victims considered that these pensions were an obligation of the State,” she explained.
She added that as a result, their government had provided assistance to those who were forced into a difficult situation due to the enforced disappearance of their spouses.
She said they had created Argentina’s Truth Commission, a decisive government body which continues to pursue and prosecute 374 tormentors.
Todate, thousands of Filipino victims and survivors of martial law are still awaiting for the implementation of 10368 that President Benigno S. Aquino III signed into law last February of this year.
Under the said law, a Claims Board shall be formed by the President to facilitate the repatriation and recognition of martial law victims as a living proof that there really were abuses committed during the martial law years.
According to those who attended the workshop, it is important that the files of the victims are properly documented or archived so that when the claims board is finally organized, only the legitimate victims will be provided with reasonable repatriation and recognition.
“Archiving is so important for it will serve as a “library” of what happened during the martial law years to ensure that the next generation will have clearer view of what forms of abuses happened during those times so that they will all say never again to martial law,” said Jimenez.