SC orders AFP to produce missing activist Jonas Burgos

(Updated 3:01 p.m.) The Supreme Court has directed the military to produce political activist Jonas Burgos, who has been missing since 2007. In a resolution promulgated last July 5, the Supreme Court gave weight to Commission on Human Rights' (CHR) March 2011 findings that found the military liable for Burgos' disappearance. The CHR named one 1st Lt. Harry Baliaga Jr. of the Army's 56th Infantry Battalion as Burgos' principal abductor. The members of the high court unanimously concurred with the resolution written by Associate Justice Arturo Brion. GMA News Online was still trying to reach AFP spokesman Commodore Miguel Lopez Rodriguez for comment as of posting time. The military had repeatedly denied hand in the disappearance of Burgos, son of press freedom icon Jose Burgos Jr. The SC also issued a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the Court of Appeals to revive the habeas corpus case that Burgos' mother, Edita, filed against the military. The SC said that the appellate court should hear the case again and render a decision 30 days after the case is deemed submitted for decision. In July 2008, the CA's Special Former Seventh Division dismissed Edita's petition for the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus and the writ of amparo, which are extraordinary judicial orders meant to protect victims of human rights abuses. In its decision, the high court said Baliaga should be impleaded as a respondent in the habeas corpus case . Other military officials the SC wants impleaded are incumbent Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Eduardo Oban Jr., incumbent Army commander Maj. Gen. Arturo Ortiz, and the heads of the 56th Infantry Battalion and 7th Infantry Division during the time of the abduction. Burgos' disappearance Burgos was abducted April 28, 2007 allegedly by military personnel while he was having lunch at a restaurant inside the Ever Gotesco Mall in Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City. His abduction happened during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has been criticized for allegedly turning a blind eye on extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and human rights violations supposedly committed by the military against leftist activists and journalists. In 2008, the CA has junked the petition of Burgos' mother to exact responsibility from the military. It held that the evidence Mrs. Burgos presented does not prove the military's involvement in the abduction of her son. Mrs. Burgos then filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which ordered the CHR to conduct an investigation into Burgos' disappearance. CHR report In March 15 this year, the CHR came out with its report linking Baliaga to Burgos' abduction. The CHR relied on the positive identification by witnesses Jeffrey Cabintoy and detained soldier Edmond Dag-uman, who confirmed that Baliaga was his former company commander at the 56th IB. The CHR also slammed the Philippine National Police's Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), which said that Burgos might have been abducted by New People's Army (NPA) rebels. The CHR likewise hinted at a possible cover-up by “some police and military elites." The commission also questioned why The Judge Advocate General (TJAG) of the AFP, through a certain General Roa, declined to furnish documents pertaining to Burgos' disappearance. It then said that TJAG's "deliberate refusal" to provide the CHR with the documents being requested "created the disputable presumption that AFP personnel were responsible for the abduction and that their superiors would be found accountable, if not responsible, for the crime committed." It also asked the SC to order the Department of Justice to immediately cover witnesses Jeffrey Cabintoy and Elsa Agasang under its Witness Protection Program. Cabintoy and Agasang worked at the Ever Gotesco Mall restaurant where Burgos was abducted. SC acts on CHR's report Acting on the CHR's findings and recommendations, the Supreme Court then ordered TJAG Roa, the AFP's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (J1), and former AFP chief of staff Ricardo David to show cause and explain why they should not be held in contempt for supposedly defying its order to provide the CHR the documents that can be relevant in investigating Burgos' disappearance. The SC also referred witnesses Cabintoy and Agasang to the DOJ for admission to the Witness Protection Program. Criminal raps at DOJ Baliaga and other military officers are facing criminal charges at the DOJ over Burgos' disappearance. Last June, Edita filed arbitrary detention charges against 1st Lt. Harry Baliaga Jr., Lt. Col. Melquiades Feliciano, Col. Eduardo Ano, and other members of the Army's 56th Infantry Battalion, the unit that allegedly carried out the abduction and disappearance. Edita said the military has no legal basis to abduct her son on the suspicion that he was a communist rebel and as the intelligence head of the New People's Army. "Verily, the kidnapping and arbitrary detention of Jonas Burgos was bereft of any legal ground. No warrant for his arrest exists that would justify his arrest and detention," Edita said. — KBK, GMA News