Families of missing Indigenous activists take protest to military's door

MANILA, Philippines — Rights groups and Indigenous peoples activists expressed their rage and grief outside the walls of Camp Aguinaldo on Thursday, April 30, three years to the day since two Indigenous rights defenders were seized at gunpoint in Rizal and never seen again.

The protest at Camp Aguinaldo, led by groups Katribu, Sandugo, and Kabataan para sa Tribung Pilipino, marked the third anniversary of the disappearances of Capuyan, a Bontoc-Ibaloi-Kankanaey organizer, and De Jesus, an Indigenous Peoples' rights worker. 

Demonstrators spray-painted a large X on banners with logos of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group alongside Marcos' image. They also plastered posters of the two missing men on the camp's walls.

TABAK, an Indigenous alliance that joined the protest, connected the disappearance of the two activists and the recent April 19 Toboso killings, in which the AFP's 79th Infantry Battalion killed 19 people it says were rebel combatants. 

Rights groups and ASEAN parliamentarians have said nine of the dead were unarmed civilians, including a community journalist, two UP students, and two minors.

"The state forces' withholding of information and freedom from Dexter and Bazoo is proof of the continuing fascism against the people," TABAK said in Filipino. 

Amid a climate of repression, the group said "the people's resistance is justified."

"The work of living among, researching with, and struggling alongside Indigenous, peasant, and other oppressed communities — as the 19 individuals in Toboso did — is righteous," it said.

In a separate statement, the Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples' Rights called the government's silence on the two missing activists a form of "complicity" and demanded a credible investigation and prosecution.

Seized at gunpoint

Capuyan, 56, a Bontoc-Ibaloi-Kankanaey organizer, and De Jesus, then 27, a staff member of the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples' Rights, were riding a tricycle through Taytay, Rizal, on the evening of April 28, 2023, when armed men forced them into separate white vans.

In August 2025, the Court of Appeals declared the two desaparecidos, or victims of enforced disappearance, in a 98-page ruling that found serious gaps in the police's investigation.

The court said police had tracked down a driver who witnessed the incident, taken his statement, then withheld it from the families and the court. The investigating officer, according to the court decision, recast the account to suggest the two left voluntarily.

No convictions

Capuyan and De Jesus are among at least 15 people forcibly disappeared since Marcos Jr. took office in 2022, according to Karapatan. 

The Philippines passed Asia's first anti-enforced disappearance law in 2012.  

"We are outraged that under the administration of Marcos Jr., the list of the disappeared continues to grow," the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances said in a statement April 28.

"These are not mere statistics; they are sons, fathers, activists, and indigenous peoples’ defenders. The involvement of state forces in these abductions is a stain on the soul of this nation," it added.