We challenge Pres. Aquino to remove ISAFP Chief Brig. Gen. Eduardo Año from his post and hold him accountable for the enforced disappearance of Jonas Burgos and other human rights violations.
The recent Court of Appeals decision and the new evidence submitted by the Burgos family to the Supreme Court point to one incontrovertible truth: that the enforced disappearance of Jonas and other desaparecidos are perpetrated by the AFP. The higher-ups involved with the disappearance of Jonas and its cover up such as Brig. Gen. Año were not only absolved by Arroyo administration but were also promoted to higher position by Pres. Noynoy Aquino.
The glaring fact is that Aquino, after almost three years in office and empty air about his administration’s ’daang matuwid’, has not filed a single case to prosecute Arroyo and her generals on the basis of grave human rights violations. Instead, Aquino promoted these Arroyo generals under his AFP command to implement his counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, an operation plan which is no different from Arroyo’s Bantay Laya. This is among the stark features of Aquino’s brand of ‘justice’, one that truly reveals his administration’s perversion of the words ‘human rights.’
After all these years of denying their dirty deeds, the AFP until now has never had the credibility when it comes to holding its men accountable for the human rights violations caused by the counter-insurgency programs that denied countless mothers, fathers, sons and daughters of their loves ones.
For us, and for victims of human rights violations, as long as military officials such as ISAFP Chief Año, Ret. Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., Maj. Harry Baliaga, and others involved in the act of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations continue to go unpunished, that is not justice.
Cristina Palabay
Secretary General, Karapatan
E-mail: karapatan@karapatan.org.