The University of the Philippines (UP) System has joined the public outcry to protect the rights and well-being of three UP alumni who, according to rights groups, were detained by state forces in connection with their activism.
In a statement issued over the weekend, the UP System encouraged the government and law enforcement to identify three UP graduates who have gone missing in recent months and to "uphold (their) constitutional rights."
This comes after four UP member institutions — Manila, Baguio, Cebu, and Visayas — expressed deep concern about the disappearances of indigenous rights advocates Gene Roz Jamil "Bazoo" De Jesus and Dexter Capuyan (UP Baguio), as well as peasant and youth organizer Patricia Nicole Cierva (UP Manila).
Cierva and fellow peasant and youth leader Cedric Casano, who soldiers purportedly arrested on May 18, appeared before the media as rebel surrenderees during a news conference convened by the Cagayan governor and members of the provincial anti-communist task force just a day before the statement.
Cierva and Casano were included among the 20 individuals tagged as former rebels who were made to take their "oath of allegiance" to formally surrender.
UP has long been recognized as a hotbed of activism, with student-led initiatives to defend democracy and human rights gaining substantial traction during the dictatorship of the president's father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
In recent years, the government's anti-communist task force and its allies have accused UP of serving as a recruiting ground for the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army, and the National Democratic Front, a charge that university administrators have consistently denied.
