oo nga naman bakit ayaw ipalabas ang kanilang report?

MANILA, Philippines -- For the first time since agriculturist Jonas
Burgos went missing exactly two months ago Thursday, his mother
accused the Army of having abducted him, and Armed Forces Chief of
Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon of covering up the crime.

Edita Burgos said that while she had always held that "circumstantial
evidence" pointed to military men as the ones who abducted Jonas in a
Quezon City mall on April 28, Esperon's "unacceptable" refusal to give
her a copy of the Army Provost Marshal's report on the investigation
had convinced her of AFP involvement.

"I accuse the Army of having forcibly taken my son Jonas," the widow
of the late freedom press icon Jose "Joe" Burgos said Wednesday at a
press conference in Quezon City.

She added: "I am the mother of a desaparecido (disappeared person). I
have all the right to know what the Provost Marshal and the Inspector
General have found out in their investigation."

Asked to comment, the military denied that Esperon was engaged in a
cover-up of Jonas' disappearance, and said that it was actually trying
to be "transparent" in the investigation.

5 officers of 56th IB

Esperon had earlier ordered the Provost Marshal and the Inspector
General to look into the possible involvement of five Army officers
assigned at the 56th Infantry Battalion (IB).

Prior to this, police investigators reported that they had taken the
statements of Lt. Col. Noel Clement, now commanding officer of the
Security and Escort Battalion based in Fort Bonifacio; Lt. Col.
Melquiades Feliciano, commanding officer of the 56th IB who succeeded
Clement in January but was reportedly relieved in May; Lt. Col. Edison
Caga, commanding officer of the 69th IB stationed in Pampanga who was
assigned to secure the 56th IB when it underwent training in November
2006; and Cpl. Castro Bugalon and PFC Jose Villena III, who were both
assigned at the 56th IB.

"I strongly suspect that either or both of [the 56th IB's] former
commanding officers, Clement and Feliciano, participated in the
enforced disappearance of Jonas," Burgos said.

She said Esperon's conduct had served to reinforce her belief that the
Army abducted Jonas and that the chief of staff had been covering it
up.

Meeting with Esperon

Burgos said that on May 21, her lawyer Ricardo Fernandez Jr. wrote
Esperon to request a copy of the report of the Provost Marshal and the
Inspector General on the involvement of the 56th IB in the
disappearance of her 37-year-old son.

She said she met with Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita on May 29 "to
seek his help in finding Jonas and ask about any information he could
provide."

She added that Ermita "responded by arranging that I meet with General
Esperon on June 6 at 10 a.m."

According to Burgos, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo even phoned her
four days before the meeting, expressing concern about Jonas and
reminding her that she should see Esperon.

But when Fernandez and her brother Jimmy Tronqued went to Esperon's
office on the appointed date, they were met by two Army officers who
had no idea about their request for a copy of the Provost Marshal's
report, Burgos said.

Esperon, they said, had left for another meeting.

Burgos herself was unable to be at the meeting because of an ailment.

'Classified matter'

On June 21, Fernandez received a letter from the Judge Advocate
General, Brig. Gen. Nemesio Dabal, who wrote in behalf of Esperon.

"The letter said we could not be given copies of the report of the
Provost Marshal and the Inspector General because of two restraints,"
Burgos said.

She said the first reason pertained to the report as a "classified
matter," the unauthorized disclosure of which, while not endangering
national security, might cause unwarranted injury to an individual.

She quoted Dabal as also saying that the other restraint was a
necessary measure in order to prevent the preemption of the final
outcome of the case "through the premature disclosure of an initial
investigation result which is taking its course under the military
justice system."

"In other words, General Esperon turned down my request because he was
concerned that my reading of the report of the Provost Marshal and
Inspector General may cause some unwarranted injury to someone, whom
he has not named, and because he does not want the initial
investigation result to preempt or be presumed to be the final
outcome," Burgos said.

She said that from the evidence gathered by investigators -- including
the testimony of the Ever Gotesco mall security guard who saw Jonas
being forced into a vehicle with Plate No. TAB 194, which was later
traced to the 56th IB -- the Army should be held accountable for her
son's disappearance.

The AFP information chief, Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, told reporters
that there was "no truth" to Burgos' accusations.

"Even before, the Chief of Staff made a commitment that anybody who is
implicated in this case will be made available to any investigative
body, and that's what we are doing right now," Bacarro said.

"We are trying to be as transparent as we want to be by making these
people available," he said in reference to former 56th IB commanding
officers Clement and Feliciano.

Bacarro said it was the police, and not the military, that was
investigating Jonas' disappearance. He said the military had only
focused its investigation on how a license plate of a vehicle
impounded in the 56th IB camp in Norzagaray, Bulacan, ended up on the
getaway vehicle of Jonas' abductors.

'I need to find Jonas'

But Burgos said: "The excuse of General Esperon in turning down my
legitimate request is unacceptable to me. I need to find Jonas, and
the report General Esperon is withholding from me will help me find
him."

Fernandez, her lawyer, said police were having a difficult time
getting the cooperation of the Army, especially with the supposed
involvement of its colonels.

"We suggested to the police investigators to show the witnesses photos
of 56th IB personnel," Fernandez said. With a report from Christine O.
Avendaño

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