Finding your information. Hey there, time traveller! Natural disasters in the Philippines are just about the only things that make the outside world sit up and take notice. Torture, executions and disappearances that regularly occur there go unnoticed, say human rights advocates. She still has scars from the metal handcuffs and a bad shoulder from beatings that happened a year ago.
The native of Los Angeles was volunteering in La Paz in Tarlac province conducting health surveys May 19 last year when she and two others were abducted by men in civilian clothing. They threatened me. They banged my head against the wall till I lost consciousness. At one point, they were putting things in my food I thought they were going to kill me.
She stayed handcuffed and blindfolded in a "filthy" cell with a small urinal, a wooden board to sleep on and male guards who beat and humiliated her. Six days after she was abducted, she was told she was being transferred to another facility. She knew about the hundreds of politically motivated killings and disappearances in the Philippines outlined in a United Nations report. She figured she was next. She later learned human rights groups lobbied for her release.
Her American citizenry also helped, she said. I met a lot of families of the disappeared who are still missing. They're stuck in silence, she said. John's High School students Monday about human rights.
She's touring major Canadian citizens with the creators of the Filipino film Dukot! At the screening in Winnipeg, home to thousands of Filipino-Canadians, people were "sympathetic and shocked," said Roxas.
