• by Stella Gonzales (manila)
• Monday, September 21, 2009
• Inter Press Service

In September 2007 the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance sent a letter to the Philippine government urging it to investigate the case of Jonas Burgos, a 37-year-old agriculturist who was abducted five months earlier in a crowded mall in Quezon City, one of the major cities comprising the metropolitan area in the national capital region.

Two years have passed but Jonas’s family and friends are still looking for him.

According to Jonas’s mother, Edita, the victim’s four-year-old daughter has not stopped expecting to see her missing father one of these days. Edita recounts a time when the girl saw the silhouette of a male visitor in their house. Thinking that it was her father, the girl rushed to the man and called out 'Tati' — her term of endearment for him, which is coined from ‘daddy’ and the Filipino word ‘tatay’ (father).

'When she saw that it wasn’t her father, she said ‘ay hindi pala’ (oh, it’s not him) and went back to what she was doing,' Edita told IPS in an interview on the very same day, Sep 21, human rights groups were marking the 37th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, which spawned massive human rights abuses, by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The girl--whose name is being withheld in keeping with Philippine laws protecting the right to privacy of children--may only have scant memories of her father because she was still very young when he went missing. But perhaps because she sees his pictures in their house, the girl seems to have a special bond with men of her father’s age and body build, Edita said. She said her granddaughter has been told in very simple language that her father 'was taken by bad men.'

Jonas, who had dedicated himself to teaching farmers natural farming techniques, was one of the 30 ‘desaparecidos’ (disappeared) documented by the human rights group Karapatan (Rights) in 2007, and one of the 202 enforced disappearances recorded from 2001 to March this year — during the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose human rights record is said to have surpassed that of Marcos.

Several months after Jonas went missing, the licence plate of the vehicle used in his abduction was traced to another car impounded in a military camp. It was a crucial lead in the search for the son of a press freedom fighter and bolstered suspicions that he was abducted by military agents. The military, however, said the licence plate was apparently stolen from the camp.

Jovito Palparan, the military general who headed the Army division where the vehicle used in Jonas’s abduction had been traced, is now a congressman or member of the lower house in the country’s bicameral legislature. He has been repeatedly blamed for the numerous cases of extrajudicial killings in the regions where he was assigned.

An Army general has claimed that Burgos -- who, witnesses said, shouted ‘I am only an activist’ on the day he was seized by armed men -- was a member of the New People’s Army, the revolutionary arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The official would not say whether it was the communist rebels who abducted him.

On the legal front, the Court of Appeals ruled in 2008 on the petition filed by Jonas’s family, but it failed to resolve some important issues, including the alleged involvement of the military in the disappearance. This prompted the family to file another case, this time before the Supreme Court, where the case has been pending for more than a year now.

Edita has been a constant figure in human rights rallies in the Philippines and has been speaking in various forums and conferences here and abroad to pressure the Philippine government into producing her son. She is leaving for Europe in October to speak before several audiences, part of her efforts to keep the public aware of the case of her son and those of other victims of enforced disappearances.

'These are small efforts just so people will not forget that Jonas is missing,' Edita said.

She has also been holding private meetings with politicians who have indicated interest in running in the May 2010 elections, when Filipinos voters will choose a new set of leaders, including president, vice-president and legislators.

'I visit them and talk to them privately. I ask them if they will take up the cause of human rights if they are elected,' Edita said.

'Some, however, have told me that human rights will surely be one of their concerns when they are elected. And I told them that I will help them not just by voting for them but also by asking my friends to vote for them,' Edita said.

Edita strongly believes that the matter of enforced disappearances will end if there is political will, which is why she wants to support politicians who are committed to human rights. She said she would also campaign against those who have a spotted human rights record.

Edita is looking forward to the day when Arroyo, who has been blamed for the surge in human rights violations in the country, leaves the presidency. 'I think I will find my son only after Arroyo leaves,' Edita said.

She said that even those who personally know her family or her late husband — esteemed newspaper publisher Jose Burgos Jr. — are covering up Jonas’s disappearance 'because of the message of Arroyo’s leadership to everybody down the line' — that their lives, their salaries would be at stake if they helped in Jonas’ case.

'I want (us to elect) honest people who will help end disappearances. If we do not put people there (in public office) who will be sincere in dismantling all the institutions used to abduct people, these disappearances will not end,' Edita said.

In her search for her missing son, Edita had been asked on several instances to identify the body of a heavily tortured male near Jonas’s age that was dumped in some province. She said she always has mixed emotions. 'On the way to the site, I would keep praying that it isn’t Jonas. But after I am able to confirm that it’s not him, I could not rejoice because I know that there’s a mother out there somewhere searching for her son,' she said.

And on the few occasions when a 'disappeared' person is 'released' by his or her captors and surfaces in a jail, Edita rejoices with other members of human rights organisations. 'You cannot imagine our happiness. There is much crying and shouting. At least one person was saved. Even if this person is in jail for some supposed crime, what’s important is that he is alive,' she said. It 'as if it is my child who was released,' she said.

More than two years after Jonas’s abduction, Edita continues to believe that Jonas is still alive — tortured, in solitary captivity, but alive. 'I don’t want to think that he is dead. Our search is made easier when I think that I will find him alive,' she said.

Yet even if Jonas were already dead, Edita would still not stop searching for him, and neither would her search for justice. 'There can only be closure after justice has been served,' she said.

'If he is dead, I am sure he is in heaven. If he is alive, I want him to know that all through these years, we did not give up the search for him.'

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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