GMA protects Isafp abductors as DoJ chief sacks Burgos prober

By Benjamin B. Pulta

07/12/2007

Even as Malacañang came up with the directive to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to present the officers and men identified with the Intelligence Service of the AFP (Isafp) linked to the Jonas Joseph Burgos abduction, the Palace also moved quickly to protect the suspected Isafp officers and men in a bid to whitewash the probe by getting the Justice chief to pull out of the investigation the chief government prober.

A day after Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco, head of the task force probing the Burgos disappearance case, received a threat to his life and two days after Velasco tasked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to go after a number of intelligence agents, whom he had publicly identified as suspects, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez sacked Velasco, claiming that the task force chief “should not have done that (named military agents). He (Velasco) has placed the onus of disproving it on the government. If he had that evidence, he should not have come out (with it). The government gets weakened by these things which we cannot prove ourselves,” adding, “it is unfair to the military.”

Velasco, for his part, said there was nothing he could do about being relieved, but stressed that his informant’s testimony carried a lot of weight, adding it is this that will break open the case of the Burgos disappearance.

But the DoJ chief retorted that Velasco “did not clear it with me. To some extent it has some merits but you are giving the family false hopes,” as he described the Velasco statements as “shooting from the hip.”

Gonzalez also dismissed the death threat received by Velasco, saying he “asked for it.”

The move to protect the suspected Isafp abductors was also noted as the NBI chief, Nestor Mantaring, despite the order from Velasco to

conduct an investigation into the identities of the Isafp suspects, showed his reluctance to come up with a probe, saying there was no complaint lodged against these suspected military personnel.

The sacked state prosecutor disclosed to media that an informant had identified the officers involved in the Burgos abduction. This was quickly denied by Isafp chief Brig. Gen. Delfin Bangit, as well as the chiefs of the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Army, with all of them claiming that no such names appear in their roster.

As the administration played the game of “bad cop-good cop” with Malacañang being the “good cop,” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday appealed to the Isafp chief to get his men to submit themselves to the government investigators, to determine their liabilities, if any.

But asked whether President Arroyo intends to summon Bangit immediately to order him to do direct his men to face the probers, Ermita hedged, saying it should be the DoJ and the NBI that is tasked to summon those military officers and men named.

“These are operational matters so we’re letting the proper authorities to pursue the investigation. Let them do what they think they should do,” he said, despite the fact that Mrs. Arroyo is the commander in chief of the AFP.

Pressed if there’s a need to investigate Bangit himself, since he is the head of the Isafp, Ermita quickly distanced the Palace from the probe, saying “we don’t have to dictate to them (DoJ and NBI) on how to go about it. We have not said anything to the effect that we believe everything he (Bangit) said so far. It’s for them to prove that to the public. If there are names mentioned, let them show this to the public...These names surfaced because there were informants that surfaced.”

Some of the Isafp members mentioned are reportedly close to Bangit, who has denied that any of his men were involved in the abduction of Burgos and in any criminal activity.

Edita Burgos, mother of the abducted Jonas, yesterday filed a habeas corpus petition before the Supreme Court (SC) and asked the court to compel AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Bangit, and several other military officers to produce her son.

Her lawyers, led by former UP College of Law dean Pacifico Agabin, Renato Fernandez and Ma. Verena Kasilag Villanueva, also asked the high court to order a thorough investigation of the April 28 abduction.

Mrs. Burgos included Mrs. Arroyo as respondent in the case and asked the SC to compel her to determine who among her subordinates have command responsibility for the enforced disappearance” of Jonas.

Aside from Esperon and Bangit, the other respondents in the case are Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo P. Tolentino, Maj. Gen. Juanito Gomez, Lt. Col. Noel Clement, and Lt. Col. Melquiades Feliciano.

Esperon and Bangit have engaged in a verbal tussle with Mrs. Burgos after she said “she had been led to no other conclusion than the military had taken her son on the afternoon he disappeared while eating lunch alone in a food court of the Ever Gotesco Mall in Quezon City.” Burgos castigated Esperon for refusing to furnish her a copy of the investigation report of the military’s Provost Marshal and Inspector General.

Bangit was also impleaded for his quick denial, stating publicly that no Isafp operative was involved in the abduction even before a special task force completes its investigation.

Specifically, Mrs. Burgos asked the SC to direct Esperon, Tolentino, Gomez, Bangit, Clement, and Feliciano “to make themselves available to the police for the investigation, to allow access by the police of documents, including the report of the Provost Marshal and Inspector General, facilities and personnel relevant or required in the investigation.”

The PNP’s Task Force Usig and the Quezon City police had handled the investigation from the start, taking down testimonies of eyewitnesses and documenting the trail that led to the license plate of the vehicle used in the abduction. The plate was traced to a vehicle impounded by the Army for illegal logs transport, and kept at the Army’s 56th Infantry Battallion based in Norzagaray, Bulacan. Clement and Feliciano were included as respondents because they were former heads of the 56th IB.

Maj. Gen. Juanito Gomez is the commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Division. He and General Tolentino were included in the petition as superiors of Clement and Feliciano.

The petitioner also asked the court to direct PNP chief Gen. Oscar Calderon “to continue with the investigation of the enforced disappearance of Jonas Burgos but with vigor, diligence, thoroughness and impartiality to find Jonas, who abducted him, who ordered his abduction and to file the appropriate case or cases against the persons responsible with the proper prosecutor.” Thus, she told the court, her “last resort is the constitutional branch vested with judicial power, this Honorable Supreme Court.” She said her son’s human rights were violated “when he was abducted by suspected agents of the State on April 28th” and detailed the evidence that led her to that conclusion—mainly, the eyewitness testimonies contained in the police report, tracing the license plates of the abductors’ vehicle and General Esperon’s unacceptable refusal to give her a copy of the Army Provost Marshall report.

“The conduct of General Esperon tells me that the Army is hiding from me information of vital investigative value in the Jonas case. First, he refused to see me and my representatives despite the fact that Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita had arranged the meeting and President Arroyo encouraged me to see him. And then he turns down my request for a copy of the report of the Provost Marshal and the Inspector General. General Esperon’s conduct or rather, misconduct, only reinforces my belief that the Army abducted Jonas and Gen. Esperon is covering up for the Army,” she stated.

“Petitioner has not heard from the police ever since. The police investigation has not progressed from the discovery of the fact that plate no. TAB 194 identified by the security guard witness was under the custody of the 56th Infantry Battalion and the statements of the witnesses, sketches of the suspects, statements of the army officers.

The police have not asked the AFP for the summary of information of the three colonels – their personal circumstances, service records, their assignments before and after 56th IB. They have not lined up the members of the 56th IB for possible identification of the eye witnesses,” the petition stressed.

Burgos said the military can deny having custody of Jonas despite the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus, but that the high court can still order the AFP to find out who snatched her son and bring to justice those responsible.

She added that despite the denial of Bangit that the alleged suspects in the abduction who were earlier identified by an informant who had approached the DoJ are not in the roster of the Isafp , she believes they were formerly with the Isafp and are now members of other intelligence units. With Gerry Baldo and Sherwin C. Olaes

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