Today marks the third year since labor organizer Loi Magbanua was abducted and disappeared by suspected state agents after attending a meeting in Valenzuela City. While her case shows how the writ of amparo issued by the courts can be ignored by police authorities, we continue to demand that she be surfaced immediately.

Magbanua, an organizer of national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), has been a labor and social activist since the 1980s. She attended an organizers’ meeting on May 3, 2022, which ended at 7:00 in the evening. She has been incommunicado since.

In August 2022, the Supreme Court issued a writ of amparo for Magbanua and named the following as respondents: Lieutenant General Bartolome Vicente Bacarro, (Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff); Retired General Jose Faustino Jr.( Officer-in-Charge of the Department of National Defense); and Ret. General Ricardo F. de Leon, (National Intelligence Coordinating Agency Director General).

Also named as respondents were: Lieutenant General Romeo Brawner, Jr. (Philippine Army Commanding General); Major General Roy M. Galido (Philippine Army Acting Chief of Staff); Major General Romulo Manuel, (Intelligence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Deputy Chief of Staff); and Brigadier General Nolasco A. Mempin (Civil Military Operations Deputy Chief of Staff).

The Supreme Court ordered the petitioners to respond to the writ within 72 hours of receiving the decision. It also provided a Temporary Protection Order for the petitioners, Magbanua’s life partner Ruth H. Manglalan and niece Alyssa Marie C. Magbanua, and their family.

In September 2022, the Court of Appeals said that the AFP and other security agencies are “accountable,” without judgement as to whether they are directly responsible, for Magbanua’s disappearance. It cited the respondents’ “sweeping denial” of any knowledge about the labor organizer’s whereabouts which indicates a failure to carry out the “extraordinary diligence” in locating Magbanua that is mandated by law.

Magbanua’s continuing disappearance shows that state security agencies can simply ignore writs of amparo and other court decisions that favor labor rights defenders. This means that state policies that can be interpreted as authorizing the abduction of labor activists – such as the retention of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC, which is notorious for human rights violations – should be junked.

At the same time, the courts and the executive branch should carry out more decisive measures to surface Magbanua and other labor organizers who have been disappeared by state agents such as William Lariosa, who was disappeared on April 10, 2024 in Bukidnon province. Without such measures and without surfacing the disappeared, the Philippine government will continue to be seen as violating workers’ human rights.