SC rejects parents’ plea for protective writs for activist daughter

MANILA, Philippines —The Supreme Court has dismissed the protective writs filed by the parents of a 19-year-old member of advocacy group Anakbayan.

“In the case at bar, the Court said that there is not much issue that Alicia Jasper [Lucena] or AJ’s situation does not qualify either as an actual or threatened enforced disappearance or extralegal killing. It further said that AJ is not missing and her whereabouts are determinable and is staying with the Anakbayan and its officers,” the high court said in the decision written by Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta.

The petitions for writs of amparo and habeas corpus were filed by AJ’s parents, Relissa and Francis, who claimed that their daughter was taken and allegedly “brainwashed” by the organization.

But the high court said the petition lacks merit.

The Court explained that the remedy of amparo, in its present formulation, confined merely to instances of extralegal killings or enforced disappearances and to threats while writ of habeas corpus is a remedy applicable to cases of illegal confinement or detention where a person is deprived of his or her liberty, or where the rightful custody of any person is withheld from the person entitled thereto.

But in the case of AJ, the high court noted that there is no indication that she is being detained or that The Court noted that it did not appear that AJ had been deprived of her liberty or that petitioners, her parents have been deprived of their rightful custody of their daughter.

“The petitioners, the Court said, failed to make a case that AJ is being detained or is being kept by the Anakbayan against her free will,” the high court said.

It added that “since the petitioner’s daughter has already attained the age of majority, which is 18-years old, AJ, in the eyes of the State, has earned the right to make independent choices with respect to the places where she wants to stay, as well as to the persons whose company she wants to keep.”

AJ’s parents have a pending kidnapping and human trafficking complaint before the Department of Justice.

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