“Focused, dedicated and exhaustive.” That’s the directive issued by President Aquino to the National Bureau of Investigation when he ordered the agency to look into the April 2007 abduction of Jonas Burgos, son of the late press freedom icon Jose Burgos Jr., in the face of a purported new and explosive evidence implicating the military in the disappearance, Malacañang announced on Wednesday.
President Benigno Aquino III has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to open a “focused, dedicated and exhaustive’’ investigation of the April 2007 abduction of Jonas Burgos shortly after his mother announced that she has obtained evidence that would implicate the military in Burgos’ disappearance.
As new evidence surfaced purportedly implicating the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the 2007 abduction of Jonas Burgos, Malacañang said on Tuesday that courts exacted justice based on evidence and presumed suspects to be innocent until proven guilty.
A day after Easter Sunday, Edita Burgos, mother of missing activist Jonas Burgos, hopes to resurrect her more than five-year-long search for her son with new evidence that she said would be a “bomb” against the government.
Not just the usual suspects. Sometimes an “order of battle” would include the name of a government official that intelligence reports would link to crimes like drugs and kidnapping.
1,838 – Total number of cases of enforced disappearance documented by the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) since 1971.
Calling their excuses “flimsy,” the Court of Appeals (CA) has denied the bid of the lawyers of fugitive retired Gen. Jovito Palparan and two other military officers for an extension of their time to question their prosecution in connection with the disappearance of two University of the Philippines (UP) coeds.
A lawmaker on Thursday urged President Benigno Aquino III to sign the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act of 2012 which would criminalize the “arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State.”
Military officers cannot dodge responsibility for having committed immoral acts by saying that they were “just following orders.”
