My brother’s disappearance & poverty

By Virginia Ann T. Burgos

It is obvious how peace and order takes an important role in economic growth. How true that improvement in people’s livelihood contributes to peace and order. And poverty causes its deterioration. Whenever bombings, kidnappings, and disappearances of foreign or known personalities happen, investment and tourism rating of the country drops in direct proportion. Virginia Ann T. Burgos’s account here gives a more personal view of the groaning of a family suffering a disappearance. “How many times must this family pay the price of freedom?” For the longest time, this question has been recurring in my mind.

It was during the Marcos dictatorship that my father, the late Jose G. Burgos Jr., put up We Forum and Malaya. It was through it, as they say, he achieved immortality.

Being the youngest in our family, I never witnessed the glorious days of We Forum, unlike my four elder siblings. But my family and other people who worked with him attest to his having fought for the truth with great passion. He lived his principles without compromise or fear.

Most people would say that my father’s contribution in restoring press freedom to the country is his legacy. There is more to what they say. My father lived his beliefs of serving other people which has animated our own way of serving others.

Jonas, my Kuya Jay, tried various paths for this service even before he took up Agriculture in Benguet State University where he graduated with a Best Thesis award. He chose Agriculture as inspired by our father’s love for nature and farming.

Only in high school then, he first became a photojournalist for We Forum/Malaya. My three elder siblings worked too with our parents in these publications. Those were difficult and dangerous times when people were afraid to work for Malaya. My sister and brothers, aged six to 11, had to help in whatever capacity they could—from folding newspapers in the printing press to selling the paper in the streets or delivering them to news dealers.

Our mother, Edita Burgos, was the general manager, while our two eldest siblings, Ate Peach and Kuya Son worked as reporters. Kuya Jay, being the youngest among the three, volunteered as the photographer. The burial of Ninoy Aquino was their most memorable coverage. They had to stand on 10-wheeler trucks for the coverage. Kuya Jay had the best photographs of his life at the burial.

My family’s support for each other and our concept of freedom bound us in this publication.

In our family, one way of showing respect for each one’s mind is through a family council. I was still very young when Kuya Jay requested for a family council when he decided to work fulltime with peasant groups so he could help them improve their quality of life through agriculture.

I didn’t understand why he embraced that path when he could be earning a lot for multinational companies as an agricultural researcher. He could have left for the US, but he was too fanatic as a patriot to leave the country.

My mom did not completely agree with Jonas’s decision. She asked my dad why he didn’t dissuade Kuya Jay on his choice. But despite my father’s fears, he was proud of Jonas for the courage and resolve to pursue what he believes in.

My mom later gave her blessings to Jonas through a letter saying: “The mother in me feels this complete helplessness…one I have never felt before…I feel that if a time comes when somehow there would be a need for a helping hand, I would not be near enough to let that hand be mine…I told you I could not give you my blessings because it would be like condoning a way of life that is not consistent with our faith. But I cannot allow you to leave with a heavy heart. So take my blessings with you. May the angels keep you safe wherever you are. May the good Lord bless you and keep you always. Remember, I love you very much”.

Our father’s imprisonment during Martial Law was meant to keep him silent.

I felt that same thing was happening to us all over again. The highest officials and their minions wanted Jonas and the others who were exposing the abuses and sins of omission and commission by the administration to be silenced.

I remember our mother’s story of my Kuya Jay giving away our dad’s new pair of slippers to a taho vendor when he was just a kid. Jonas felt sorry for the old man who wore big-holed slippers while earning a living hawking goods along E. Rodriguez. At a very young age, my kuya already reached out to those in need.

If there is one thing that our parents never had difficulty in imparting to him, that was the passion to serve people.

But on that instance of helping the taho vendor, someone commented that Jonas was already acting like an activist when he was just a kid. Our society perceives a person as an activist when he helps poor people who have nothing to give back in return.

For more than 10 years, my brother worked with the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan, a chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines). He conducted agri-technology trainings for farmers and taught them of their rights as peasant workers. He enjoyed a simple kind of life. He did not earn much, but he loved his job and knew what he’s fighting for. This is the most obvious reason why he’s in a limbo called enforced disappearance.

My brother was abducted in broad daylight on April 28, 2007 while having lunch at Hapag Kainan at the Ever Gotesco Mall food court in Commonwealth, Quezon City.

We’re lucky that our friends from the media have been supporting us in the search for Jonas. The first press conference we held on April 30, 2007 reporting Jonas’s disappearance opened the doors for his case to be one of the most high-profile cases of enforced disappearance in the country.

There are no words that can exactly describe the kind of despair and helplessness that I felt. How could such a selfless person be subjected to this kind of cruelty, and how can people just label someone “enemy of the state” without really knowing the truth?

A security guard, Larry, testified in court that four men and a woman dragged Jonas inhumanely out of the mall as if they were lifting a struggling pig. They dumped him into a maroon Toyota Revo with plate number TAB 194. Larry tried to interfere, but the men holding Jonas said they were police officers. He could do nothing but jot down the vehicle’s plate number in his log book.

Elsa Agasang, a waitress on duty at Hapag Kainan, told the witness stand my brother was having lunch alone. The men chatted with Jonas briefly then suddenly dragged him out of the restaurant’s premises. According to her, Jonas looked straight into her eyes, silently pleading for help. But she was stunned and failed to move an inch or cry for help.

Hearing those testimonies, I can’t help but wonder why not one good Samaritan among the hundreds of people in the mall came up to help my brother. That was a Saturday afternoon. The mall was full of shoppers. One voice of protest could have prevented his abduction. My consolation was the Lord is still very merciful to give us two brave souls who fearlessly testified in court.

Why do we say that it is the government, the military, that is responsible for the disappearance of my brother?

First, anyone in his proper mind would not have the guts to abduct someone in a crowded mall during lunch hours. Who would be able to pass security officers in the mall with guns tucked in their waist if not people with authority to bring arms?

Second, Supt. Estomo of the Philippine National Police (PNP) testified in court that the plate number TAB 194 was registered for a red Isuzu jeep, originally owned by Mauro Mudlong who was arrested in July 2006 for illegal logging.

Mudlong’s arrest was a joint operation of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) 56th Infantry Battalion. Mudlong’s jeep was then impounded at the 56th Infantry Battalion’s camp in Norzagaray, Bulacan. The car plate and the Isuzu jeep were in the custody of the military at the time of the abduction.

Would anyone believe that Mudlong’s frustration over the confiscation of his vehicle trigger him to take the risk of sneaking into the military camp just to steal the jeep’s plate and attach it to another vehicle to abduct someone? I ask this because this is the conclusion of Estomo, i.e., that the car plate was stolen by Mudlong and attached it to another vehicle and abducted Jonas to ‘make the military look bad.’

My mom and my brother JL along with some families of the disappeared visited the 56th Infantry Battalion’s camp and realized that it would be impossible for an intruder to just enter the camp without being noticed. The camp is located at the top of a hill, and anyone who is at least a few kilometers approaching the camp is visible from it.

The group who joined the search took pictures of Mudlong’s jeep and noticed that the vehicle had been cannibalized, no longer with its engine. It was parked just a few steps away from the camp’s headquarters. Why would anyone dare to steal the jeep’s plate?

We claim to be living in a democratic country. Yet data show that human rights violations occur and is in fact being perpetrated by state forces.

The 2008 yearend report of KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) shows that there has been a large number, 201, of enforced disappearance since the present government assumed in 2001. It is sad to know that this number must be substantially bigger with undocumented cases.

It is a shame that despite the Philippines presiding as the head for a Human Rights group at the United Nations (UN), the number of enforced disappearances continue to balloon.

Instead of pursuing genuine reforms to alleviate the economic crisis, the government persists in projecting positive economic statistics which clearly does not reflect the extreme poverty that the majority of people suffer.

Prof. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, directly attributes extrajudicial killings to AFP and its counter-insurgency program.

“The necessary measures should be taken to ensure that the principle of command responsibility, as it is understood in international law, is a basis for criminal liability within the domestic legal order,” Alston said.

After his 10-day visit to the country in February 2007, Alston concluded in his report that the military was in “a state of denial” concerning its involvement in extrajudicial killings.

His August 2007 report to the UN showed that there is a pattern of demonizing the victims of killings and disappearances and then passing the blame to the New People’s Army (NPA).

The government launched Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) or Oplan “Freedom Watch” in 2002 as its five-year national counter-insurgency blueprint.

OBL took off from previous administrations’ AFP counter-insurgency programs and is patterned after Operation Phoenix which the U.S. used in Vietnam.

What OBL accomplished are extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of hundreds of men and women from among political activists, workers, journalists, peasants, church people, lawyers and various sectors of our society. OBL not only targets the Communist Party of the Philippines, NPA, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP), but also those identified with the legal Left, dubbed by the AFP as “sectoral front organizations”.

To further strengthen OBL, the government implemented the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) or as they call it, Human Security Act (HSA). Despite widespread protest against its implementation, the law took effect on July 15, 2007. Under the ATL, those adjudged guilty will be subjected to a 40-year life sentence without the benefit of a parole.

Also, common crimes already covered by the Revised Penal Code are considered “terrorism” under the ATL.

It defined a terrorist act as seeking “to sow and create conditions of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.” The vague definition may be expanded to other acts that can cover just anybody questioning or criticizing a policy, program, or action of the government.

ATL gives the state the right to conduct surveillance against so-called “terrorist” organizations, suspected “terrorists”, and those suspected of providing aid or support to suspected “terrorists.”

It also allows warrant-less arrests and detention for three days without charges. And it can be extended indefinitely in case of “actual or imminent terrorist attack.”

We can only imagine what can happen during those three godless days.

Under this law, police or military officers are allowed to look into the bank accounts and financial records of “suspected terrorists”. Such accounts may also be frozen or sequestered.

Suspects may be subjected to a “house arrest” even without sufficient evidence. Their right to travel may be restricted. Suspects may also be banned from using telephone, internet, computer, or any means of communication.

Although we in the family are not being branded as terrorists, we feel the full extent of the pain and purge of the people behind the abduction. As if kidnapping Jonas is not enough, all of us were put under surveillance and harassment. This has resulted in everyone in the family losing his fulltime job. I myself was asked by my mom to resign from my work in Makati. Having one missing son was already too much for her to bear.

The government’s denial on its involvement in human rights violations is its way of projecting political and economic stability, despite the considerable number of human rights violations (HRVs) in the country.

Any student of history and politics knows that most countries with high rates of HRVs belong to less economically progressive countries.

Poverty has caused many people to armed uprising and guerilla warfare. Feudal governments continue to violate rights of its citizens, who, in turn, rebel against authority.

It is a vicious cycle that eats this whole country alive. Ideology is not the main dish anymore, but the promise of breaking free from the bondage of poverty and the indignity that comes with it.

Cases like Jonas’ disappearance are a proof of the government’s inability to appease its people who are a picture of discontent in its inutile programs and repressive policies.

I believe that the reason why this country is still languishing in the pits of poverty is because this ugly mark of instability haunts any investor who dares put his money in this country.

And as long as there persist cases of abuse, people like Jonas will come out to help make this country become better.

I am sad that my brother, up to this very moment, is still missing. I am consoled that at least, he is not a mere number in the unending statistics of abuse.

Jonas, in his disappearance, has shed light to the plight of the faceless, nameless people who suffer under an abusive regime. In its own grotesque way, it’s a blessing that he is the son of our father, lending the Burgos name to continue fighting for the oppressed rights of the people.