James Jazmines’ cycling buddy also abducted
Environmentalist 15th enforced disappearance victim under Marcos Jr.
A cycling buddy of missing activist James Jazmines has also gone missing, five days after the younger brother of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Alan has been reported abducted, rights group KARAPATAN said.
Felix Salaviera Jr. had been abducted in Barangay Cobo, Tabaco, Albay on the morning of August 28, KARAPATAN said, most likely by armed State forces.
KARAPATAN said Salaviera was tending to his garden when taken by men in civilian clothes from his residence at about ten o’clock in the morning of August 23.
READ: Rights group raises fear NDFP consultant’s brother is latest enforced disappearance victim
The victim was forced into a silver van with plate numbers VAA 5504 which was later found to belong to a red Toyota Rush.
The decals on the van belonged to a Laguna-based information technology company, KARAPATAN added.
Salaviera’s daughters said the incident was captured by closed circuit television cameras and was witnessed by bystanders.
Uniformed members of the Tabaco police later went to Salaviera’s house that night and took personal belongings “for safekeeping.”
Salaveria celebrated his birthday last August 23 with his cycling budding, including Jazmines who had gone missing that night.
It was Salaviera who informed KARAPATAN that James had gone missing, the group’s secretary general Cristina Palabay said in an online press briefing today.
“KARAPATAN believes that State forces are responsible for their disappearance, and demand that any information on their whereabouts should immediately be disclosed,” the group said.
Palabay said they suspect the 49th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army to be involved in the abductions as Tabaco is within its “area of responsibility.”
She said they also asked assistance from the provincial government and the regional office of the Commission on Human Rights.
Palabay said they are also asking Congress to conduct investigations on the abductions.
Jazmines and Salaviera are the 14th and 15th cases of enforced disappearance of activists under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government.
Planet lover
Former Ateneo de Manila University College of Law Dean Antonio La Vina said it is hard to understand why Salaviera was abducted.
“Bakit niyo siya kinuha? Gardening, cycling, eco waste ang buhay niya,” the lawyer asked. (Why did you abduct him? He is just into gardening, cycling, eco-waste advocacy.)
La Vina said Salaviera is, “A good man, an environmental defender…a friend to nature and committed to his country. He is frail and he needs to be surfaced immediately.”
The victim’s daughters, Gab and Felicia, said their father survived a stroke in 2023 and is partially paralyzed on the left side of his body.
They said their father is into cycling and has fallen in love with Bicol, prompting him to relocate in the province when he retired.
Salaviera is a founding and active member of Cycling Advocates (CYCAD), a founding member of indigenous peoples organizations Tabak (Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa mga Katutubo) as well as Katribu (Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino).
He is an eco-waste management advocate and maintained a small community garden Tabaco where he was taken.
A San Beda High School graduate in 1976, Salaviera later majored in Sociology at the University of the East. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)