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The Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) is a non-profit, national human rights organization based in Manila, Philippines. It documents human rights violations, assists victims and their families, organizes missions, conducts human rights education work, campaigns against torture, and promotes advocacy for Human Rights Defenders and Environmental movement.
TFDP was established in 1974 by the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP). Its first chairperson was Fr. Mel Brady, Chairman of the Canon Law Committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). The courageous Franciscan nun Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, SFIC, led the organization for 21 years, including the entire 14-year dictatorship of the late Ferdinand Marcos. [1]
The organization is mainly credited for its staunch human rights practice and advocacy. [2] The late dictator Marcos had filled the country's prisons and military camps with political prisoners, mostly student and peasant protesters, members of left organizations and political opponents. Many were tortured, [3] some murdered. [4] [5]
TFDP undertook the difficult task of documenting human rights abuses by the regime. [6] It built a network of nuns, priests and lay persons, including released political detainees and their relatives, for this sensitive work. TFDP volunteers visited prisons, hospitals and even morgues in the course of documenting abuse cases. [7] They organized missions to exhume bodies and interview residents of terrorized communities. They sought refuge for people at risk of arrest or harm. They sometimes performed personally dangerous feats, such as securing documents in their own bodies. [8] Hundreds were trained to become paralegals in support of TFDP's documentation work.
Another of TFDP's pioneering work involved supporting productive work inside prisons, in particular arts and craft, thus helping in the promotion of prison art under the dictatorship. TFDP volunteers brought art materials to the prisoners, and took out their finished products and helped market them. [7]
It also ran other programs including a scholarship fund for families of political detainees, a fund to promote livelihood projects of released prisoners, and a small loans program to help families of prisoners cope with the day-to-day survival.
It released updates about arrests and releases, and alerts on missing individuals. Its publications include TFDP Update, Lusong, Pumipiglas, Trends, Political Detainees Quarterly Report, and Political Detainees Update. These publications were distributed worldwide, helping call attention to the state of political repression in the Philippines, and giving political detainees and their families a platform to publicly express their demands and experiences.
For legal support and assistance, TFDP worked closely with lawyers connected with the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), another group that saw birth during the Marcos dictatorship, and was organized and headed by nationalist lawyer Sen. Jose W. “Ka Pepe” Diokno. Individuals working against the Marcos regime and its repressive policies were urged to always carry with them a FLAG handbook of rights, bearing telephone numbers to call in case of need.
Funding for the Task Force initially came from its mother organization, the AMRSP. Eventually more funds poured in as solidarity for the Philippine human rights movement grew. By 1981, the Task Force was running an annual operation of about 3 million pesos.
Sr. Mariani and other TFDP representatives spoke tirelessly in forums throughout Asia, Europe and the United States, as well as in the United Nations, before the Amnesty International and international meetings, gave interviews, and met with government authorities and funding organizations, in order to spread international awareness about the condition of political prisoners under the Marcos dictatorship. [7]
After the Marcos dictatorship was defeated, the Task Force pursued its campaign for human rights under subsequent Philippine administrations. It also expanded advocacy for economic rights, partly by calling against environmental destruction and large-scale mining.
TFDP supports international human rights instruments, such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration on the Right to Development, the multilateral treaty International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the multilateral treaty International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Margarita "Maita"FavisGomez was a Filipino scholar, activist and beauty pageant titleholder.
The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) is a nationwide organization of human rights lawyers in the Philippines. It was founded in 1974 by Sen. Jose W. Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, J.B.L. Reyes, and Joker Arroyo during the martial law era under former President Ferdinand Marcos. It is the first and largest group of human rights lawyers established in the nation. They work on countering varied abuses against human rights and civil liberties. Its current chairman since 2003 is human rights attorney Chel Diokno, the founding dean of the De La Salle University Tañada-Diokno School of Law.
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The dictatorship of 10th Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s and 1980s is historically remembered for its record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against his dictatorship. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 737 'disappeared', and 70,000 incarcerations.
During the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino workers in the labor industry experienced the effects of government corruption, crony capitalism, and cheap labor for foreign transnational industries, One of the objectives of Martial Law was to cheapen labor costs, in order to attract transnational corporations to export labor to the Philippines. Marcos signed many presidential decrees beneficial only to his associates, while allowing for the forced relocation of indigenous peoples, decreasing workers' wages, and murders of labor activists. Minimum wage was a fixed PHP8.00 per day. Many workers were unemployed or underemployed. It was also during the Marcos presidency when the practice of contractualization began, enabling managements to avoid giving regular, permanent status to employees after six months of work. Strikes were banned and the government controlled trade unions, leaving workers without effective protection against employers who had unfair labor practices and regulations.
Edgar Catacutan Ang Sinco was a student activist from the University of Mindanao (UM) in Davao City who was active in the years immediately prior to Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law. He was shot down while giving a speech in front of the University' Main building on February 16, 1971 – one of several students gunned down during the events of the First Quarter Storm, but the first from the city of Davao. As such, he is considered Davao City's first martyr in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.
Captain Danilo Poblete Vizmanos, PN, Ret. was a Filipino activist and retired captain of the Philippine Navy. He is best known for his resistance against the Martial Law regime of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. On November 30, 2016, Vizmanos' name was engraved on the Wall of Remembrance of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, which honors the martyrs and heroes who fought against the Marcos dictatorship.
Mariani Cuevas Dimaranan,, also known as Sister Mariani, was a Catholic nun and activist in the Philippines who fought against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
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David Triunfante Bueno was a Filipino human rights lawyer and radio show host from Ilocos Norte, best known his work as the most prominent human rights lawyer in Ilocos Norte during the later part of the Marcos administration and the early part of the succeeding Aquino administration. He was a member of the prestigious group called the Free Legal Assistance Group or FLAG, the oldest and largest group of human rights lawyers in the country.
Jacobo Sybico Amatong was a Filipino lawyer, politician, and newspaper publisher from the province of Zamboanga del Norte. He was best known for founding the Mindanao Observer, a community newspaper which became well-known for criticizing the martial law administration of Ferdinand Marcos, and for being assassinated by uniformed soldiers on September 24, 1984.
Romraflo R. Taojo was a Filipino labor and human rights lawyer, activist, and educator best known for his work with the Free Legal Assistance Group, where he pursued human rights cases against military personnel who were implicated in torture cases. He was killed on April 2, 1985, when unidentified gunman entered his apartment in Tagum, Davao Del Norte, and shot him five times in the eyes and mouth. The gunmen were believed to be part of a paramilitary group acting on orders from the military.
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Sister Mary Bernard Jimenez, CM was a Filipina Carmelite Missionary and educator best known for her humanitarian work with the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP). She was one of its earliest volunteers when it was first organized by the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines in 1974. She eventually became TFDP coordinator for Metro Manila.
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