SC to AFP: Submit reports on Burgos

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court has ordered the military to produce all documents in relation to the Jonas Burgos case and submit a report on the location of officers and soldiers linked to his abduction.

In its en banc meeting on Thursday, April 11, the High Court agreed to order Armed Forces chief of staff Gen Emmanuel Bautista to take note of a supposed After Apprehension Report prepared by two Army intelligence task forces – one, the Task Organization-56th infantry battalion, which is based in Bulacan, and another, the Task Force Organization-72 MICO, which is a military intelligence company that is under the command of an Army division. The report was submitted by Mrs Edita Burgos, Jonas’ mother, to the High Tribunal.

Bulacan is under the 7th infantry division of the Army, which used to be headed by fugitive Maj Gen Jovito Palparan until 2006. (Each Army division is assigned one MICO.)

Two former officers of the 56th battalion have been implicated in the case: Col Melquiades Feliciano, former battalion commander, and Maj Harry Baliaga, who was positively identified by an employee of Hapag Kainan restaurant where Burgos was abducted as the one who led the abducting team. (It was the Commission on Human Rights that was able to pin down Baliaga in its own probe. Read all about it here: Why would the Army abduct Jonas Burgos?)

The Court also asked the AFP chief to produce a confidential report “on the present location and/or whereabouts” of military personnel in these two task forces, and “ensure that these military personnel can be located and served with the processes that this Court may serve.”

The High Court also directed the National Bureau of Investigation to coordinate with and provide investigative assistance to the Commission on Human Rights as it expands its probe on the abduction. It has also issued a protection order to Mrs Burgos and her family.

Before the case was elevated to the SC, the military has consistently dodged all efforts to make it admit to anything about the Burgos case. While the Court of Appeals conducted numerous hearings on it, military commanders refused to disclose anything that would help move the investigation.

It was in one of the CA hearings where a restaurant employee identified Baliaga as one of the men who abducted Jonas. Baliaga broke down in that hearing.

Mrs Burgos went to the SC recently to ask it to order the CA to reopen the case based on the After Apprehension Report in her possession, an alleged photo of her son taken after he was arrested, a pscyho-social processing report, and an autobiography of the son of the late press freedom icon Jose Burgos. She submitted all of these to the SC.

No other case of enforced disappearance in recent history had come this close to identifying key players, producing documents, and establishing the motive for such crime.

Jonas Burgos was seized on April 28, 2007 at the Hapag Kainan restaurant in Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City by unidentified men who dragged him into a vehicle whose plate number was eventually traced to the 56th infantry battalion.

The SC resolution came weeks after the Court of Appeals found the military accountable for the disappearance of Jonas. The CA, in a decision dated March 18, singled out Baliaga as the one responsible for the enforced disappearance of Burgos. 

President Benigno Aquino III himself called for a “focused, dedicated and exhaustive” probe on the Burgos case. Bautista said he welcomes Aquino’s order, saying the military, too, “wants to settle it once and for all…we want to move on.” – Rappler.com