Spy chief snubs hearing on Burgos’ disappearance
MANILA, Philippines — Not only was the chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) a no-show for the second time at the Commission on Human Rights’ public inquiry Tuesday into Jonas Burgos’ disappearance, his lawyer also refused to take part in the hearing.
CHR Chair Purificacion Quisumbing chided Maj. Ser-me Ayuyao, who was representing ISAFP chief Maj. Gen. Delfin Bangit, when the lawyer questioned the legality of the proceedings.
“We will note that you have a certain predilection to be uncooperative,” an apparently annoyed Quisumbing told Ayuyao after he declined to take the “witness stand.”
Ayuyao, who heads ISAFP legal affairs, answered in the affirmative when asked by Quisumbing if he was “objecting” to the proceedings.
He argued that the hearing was tantamount to an investigation where subpoenaed persons would be told to swear to their statements without being apprised of their constitutional right to remain silent or guard against self-incrimination.
The CHR has a standing order for the AFP and the Philippine National Police to locate the missing Burgos.
This is the second CHR hearing on Burgos’ disappearance. The first was held last May, and Bangit likewise missed it.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Commissioner Dominador Calamba raised doubt about the AFP’s avowed inability to locate Burgos dead or alive, given the resources at the military’s disposal.
Calamba told Ayuyao that the public might find “those excuses of yours” hard to believe. He was referring to the AFP’s claim that the license plates that witnesses had seen on the vehicle used by Burgos’ abductors were merely “stolen” from a jeep impounded in an Army camp for “illegal logging.”
‘Operational matters’
Earlier in the hearing, after Ayuyao reported that Bangit could not make it because of “operational matters” that needed his attention, the lawyer already got a mouthful from Calamba.
“I notice that he doesn’t attend to the subpoenas sent to him and sends lower-ranking officials. I don’t know if he has any respect for the [CHR] as a civilian office,” Calamba said, adding:
“That’s why you (ISAFP) are always pilloried by the press.”
At some point in the hearing, Quisumbing cut Ayuyao short when he again tried to speak from the sidelines.
The CHR chair said the panel would not recognize Ayuyao — not after he had “lectured” the commission on the propriety of the proceedings — unless he took the stand.
Thieves in well-guarded camp?
In his own exchange with Ayuyao, Calamba said in reference to the alleged theft of the license plates: “I don’t know who will buy that idea.
“We don’t believe that you couldn’t find Burgos with all the operatives you have.”
Calamba later clarified that the hearing was not intended to prosecute the military but to give it a chance to air its side, especially since media reports supposedly tended to attribute Burgos’ abduction to the military.
In grilling Lt. Col. Noel Clement, the former commander of the 56th Infantry Battalion in Norzagaray, Bulacan, Calamba wondered why a supposedly “well-guarded” military camp would lose impounded materials to thieves.
Clement said security “lapses” could occur given the size of the camp, but added that he had yet to check whether the theft occurred during his stint as camp commander.
“What your men do or fail to do is your responsibility, being the battalion commander,” Calamba told Clement.
In contrast, the commissioners appeared to be more appreciative of the report of Senior Supt. Joel Napoleon Coronel on the PNP’s investigation of the Burgos case.
“Unfortunately, we have not located him,” said Coronel, chief of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) for the National Capital Region.
He said the Burgos family had been shown “three exhumed cadavers” — unclaimed bodies buried in Bataan province — but had not identified any to be that of the missing activist.
Coronel also said the CIDG had “contacted” by phone military camps and other police camps, as well as the National Bureau of Investigation, to check if Burgos had actually been “arrested for lawful reasons.”
No inspection of ISAFP
But “protocol,” he said, had prevented the CIDG from entering the ISAFP compound at the military general headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
“Not everyone is allowed to go inside [it],” he said.
Coronel also said that on May 29, a security guard who witnessed Burgos’ abduction on April 28 was shown photos of two Army soldiers who had apprehended the “illegal logging” jeep in Bulacan.
He said the guard did not identify the soldiers as involved in the abduction.
July 19, 2007 at 5:31 pm
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