There is no symbolism for the disappeared.

They were taken away without a trace.

That was part of the terror tactic:

the permanent anguish it caused the family.

It is described like living with a ghost;

they are not dead, but they are not alive either.

Analia Penchaszade

Activists Ma. Luisa "Ging Ging" Posa-Dominado and Leonilo “Nilo” Arado are among the desaparecidos, victims of involuntary disappearance in the Philippines.

Luisa and Nilo were abducted by suspected military agents at around 9:30 p.m. on April 12, 2007 at Barangay Cabanbanan, Oton, part of Iloilo province in the central Philippine island of Panay.

Heavily armed men on board at least two vehicles waylaid the victims’ vehicle and shot the driver, human rights worker Jose Ely “Leeboy” Garachico, and left him behind before forcing Luisa and Nilo into vans. The victims’ pickup truck was found hours later badly burned in a sugarcane field around 30 kilometers from where the victims were abducted in Barangay Guadalupe, Janiuay.

Leeboy, public information officer in Panay of the human rights group Karapatan, was seriously wounded and was confined in the intensive care unit of a local hospital for days. The slug is still embedded in one of his lungs.

Luisa, one of the prominent political detainees during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (1972-1986), was the Secretary and a member of the Board of the Panay Fair Trade Center (PFTC) and the spokesperson in Panay of the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Para sa Amnestiya (Selda), a group of former political detainees.

Nilo was regional chair of the militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and regional secretary-general of the farmers' organization Pamanggas. He was also a nominee of the party-list group Anakpawis.

Luisa and Nilo are only two of more than 200 victims of involuntary disappearance since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power in a people’s uprising in 2001.

The families and colleagues of the victims have condemned this brutal act. They are appealing to their abductors to release the two alive and unharmed to their families who are facing the daily torment of not knowing whether their loved ones are dead or still alive.

But despite national and international outcry, the killings and abductions of activists and journalists in the Philippines continue.

Luisa and Nilo remain missing to this day.

Join us through this website in our fight and prayers for the safety and eventual surfacing of Luisa, Nilo and all desaparecidos.