National Security Council spokesperson Jonathan Malaya’s attempt to discredit “Alipato at Muog,” an award-winning documentary film about the abduction and enforced disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos in April 2007, is a glaring example of the culture of impunity at work.
“Alipato at Muog “painstakingly pieces together details about Jonas Burgos’ disappearance collected over the years and comes to the same conclusion as the Supreme Court resolution dated March 27, 2013 which determined that it was the Philippine Army of the Armed Forces of the Philippines that took Jonas Burgos on April 28, 2007, and that he is a victim of enforced disappearance. The Supreme Court also directed State forces to thoroughly investigate Burgos’ disappearance and affirmed this resolution in 2018.
Malaya, of course, conveniently fails to mention the Supreme Court ruling but harps on the dismissal of the criminal cases against identified suspects in Burgos’ disappearance as well as the justice system’s failure to pin down National Security Adviser Eduardo Año for his role in this matter. Then he falsely claims that Jonas Burgos’ disappearance is an old case, implying that it no longer deserves scrutiny, when the law on enforced disappearance defines it as a continuing crime.
What makes Malaya’s statement even more appalling is that it was delivered in such an acerbic, insensitive and offensive tone, in total disregard for the feelings of the Burgos family and other families of desaparecidos who continue to seek answers about their loved one’ disappearance. The aggrieved families deserve support and empathy from State actors who are mandated to exercise due diligence in investigating and getting to the bottom of the disappearances. Instead, the families are given the run-around and eventually encounter a brick wall in their attempts to find justice and closure.
Malaya’s statement brings to the fore the grand conspiracy of State actors to protect those responsible for the abduction and disappearance not only of Jonas Burgos but of all other victims of enforced disappearance. It is a deliberate attempt by the country’s security forces, for which Malaya speaks, to continue evading accountability and obstructing the attainment of justice for the victims.
KARAPATAN vows to unrelentingly support the families of victims of State-sanctioned enforced disappearance in their quest for justice for their loved ones and accountability for the perpetrators of this dastardly crime. As long as there are no answers on the disappeared, their stories will never become “old cases” as the Jonathan Malayas of this world would have it.
