The militant rights group Karapatan on Friday called on President Benigno Aquino III to compel the military to produce missing activist Jonas Burgos to follow through on an order the Supreme Court issued on July 5.
“We call on President Noynoy Aquino to use his power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to order the military to abide by the Supreme Court’s order ‘to surface’ Jonas Burgos and ensure that those responsible for his abduction and disappearance will be punished. Only then can decisions of the Courts have teeth and effect the lessening of, if not totally ending, impunity,” Karapatan said.
But another militant organization, he National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), a group of human rights lawyers, expressed doubt yesterday that the AFP would comply with the Supreme Court’s order to produce the missing Burgos.
In a statement, NUPL secretary general Edre Olalia said that the AFP had not really complied with the writs of amparo or habeas corpus granted in favor of desparecidos (the disappeared).
“Will the military really cooperate and rectify the horrific injustice they have done? Will it admit beyond its rhetoric its complicity as an institution in the abduction of Jonas Burgos?” Olalia asked.
Burgos, son of the late anti-Marcos press freedom fighter Jose “Joe” Burgos, was forcibly taken by armed men and a woman from a Quezon City mall in broad daylight on April 28, 2007.
A reinvestigation by the Commission on Human Rights ordered by the Supreme Court identified one of Burgos’ alleged abductors as one Army Lieutenant Harry Baliaga, Jr.
The NUPL said that the Supreme Court’s order for the military to produce Burgos was a “welcome development to stop impunity and to make the perpetrators of human rights violations accountable for their crimes.”
Olalia said, “We are glad that the SC seems to be delivering a message that is loud and clear—that it is now time, belated as it is, to give justice to the kin of those missing like Jonas Burgos and the two university students.”
In the July 5 ruling that was released only on Thursday, the Supreme Court also ordered the Armed Forces to release student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño as well as farmer Manuel Merino who were all abducted five years ago in Hagonoy, Bulacan.
The military has continued to deny that they had Burgos et al in their custody.
NUPL also assailed the Aquino government for what it claimed was its “inaction” on the human rights situation in the country, noting that 45 extrajudicial killings had taken place in President Aquino’s first year as Commander in Chief.
“How come P-Noy remains passive and eerily silent on the continuing impunity? It is tragically not one of his priorities. Does he tacitly condone these acts? Silence may be construed as acquiescence. But we will not let up,” Olalia said.