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Saturday, July 28, 2007
Military fails to produce Burgos during hearing
MANILA -- The military said it could not produce Jonas Joseph Burgos in court because it does not have custody of the missing activist, during a hearing Friday on the petition for habeas corpus filed by his mother.
Major General Delfin Bangit, chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, returned Friday the writ of habeas corpus issued by the court to him, saying all his field commanders denied having custody of Burgos.
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During the Friday hearing on the petition of habeas corpus filed by Edita, Burgos's mother, she asked associate justices of the Court of Appeals eighth division to cite the military and police in contempt.
Only Bangit, of the police and military officials cited in the petition, submitted his return of the writ.
Edita took the witness stand during the hearing and openly accused the military of involvement in her son's disappearance based on the sworn testimony of four witnesses.
Hearing the petition were Associate Justice Remedios Salazar-Fernando, chair of the CA eighth division, and Associate Justices Rosalinda Vicente and Monina Zenarosa.
"We have no evidence that he is alive. We also don't have evidence that he is dead. I choose to believe he is alive. There is always the hand of God. If they are saying that they are trying to locate him, they could have done that earlier if they really wanted to," she said.
Bangit's lawyer Major Serme Ayuyao told the CA that the alleged statement of a purported military intelligence agent "would not even pass for competency of evidence."
"In either case or in both cases, the herein petition for habeas corpus may not produce the desired result of producing Jonas Burgos. It is fundamental in a petition for habeas corpus that the person to whom the writ is directed is capable of producing or, at the very least, knows where the person subject of the writ is," said Ayuyao.
Burgos's counsel Pacifico Agabin countered by saying the evidence they have presented so far in the complaint was sufficient to indict the respondents, referring to the abandoned assembled vehicle with license plate number TAB-194, which had been found in the compound of the military's 56th Infantry Battalion in Norzagaray, Bulacan.
This was the same license plate on the vehicle used by five men and a woman who forcibly took Burgos, son of the late Malaya publisher and freedom icon Jose Burgos, onboard a maroon Toyota Revo vehicle. One of Burgos family's witnesses, Larry Marquez, a security guard of the Hapag-Kainan restaurant in Ever Gotesco mall in Quezon City where Jonas was abducted last April 28, attested to the information.
Assistant Solicitor General Amparo Tang, who appeared in behalf of Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Lieutenant General Romeo Tolentino, Major General Juanito Gomez, Bangit, Lieutenant Colonel Noel Clement, Lieutenant Colonel Melquiades Feliciano, National Police Chief Oscar Calderon, said the military officers could not attend the hearing because of an ongoing command conference with President Arroyo in Zamboanga City.
Only Gomez, Clement, and Feliciano were present during the hearing. The other respondents were represented by their lawyers.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was a respondent in the habeas corpus petition, being the Commander-in-Chief of the security forces involved and who has command responsibility over the action of the officers.
Tang insisted that the respondents have no personal knowledge of Burgos's disappearance and that respondent military officials have just been "subjected to unsubstantiated, baseless, deceptive and highly speculative news reports and commentaries in the newspapers."
"The case for habeas corpus should be dismissed because the Armed Forces does not have Mr. (Jonas) Burgos in their custody. He has never been arrested by the military. He is not in their custody. But it's not a question of the legality of the detention. They have not established that this person is in the custody of the respondents," Tang said.
She added that such a petition should only be filed when the detention or possession of the body has been clearly proven.
"Kung disappearance and pinag-uusapan (If we talk about disappearance), this (case) is for the police to work on and to investigate. The function of the court is judicial and not investigative," she told reporters in an interview after the hearing.
But another Burgos lawyer, Ricardo Fernandez, argued that "all circumstantial evidence" are pointing to the military, saying that the license plate used in the getaway vehicle was traced to an impounded Asian Utility Vehicle at the headquarters of a military battalion.
"They can say that Jonas is not with them, but our evidence says otherwise. You cannot hide anything forever," he said.
During the hearing, the defense failed to cross examine the complainant because they have yet to get a copy of her affidavit, which also contained the sworn statement of Marquez.
Last July 24, the Supreme Court (SC) granted Edita's petition for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus ordering respondents to produce Burgos and for the CA to conduct hearings on the case.
In her petition, Edita asked the high tribunal to resume the investigation and bring to justice her son's abductors.
She also called on the SC justices to "promulgate rules concerning the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights to enable state institutions to enforce human rights more effectively and to prevent enforced disappearances of activists." (ECV/Sunnex)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Zamboanga. (July 28, 2007 issue)
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