AFP TOLD TO THOROUGHLY PROBE YOUNG
BURGOSS ABDUCTION BEFORE CLEARING ITSELF

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today rebuked the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for its instant denial that soldiers have nothing to do with the disappearance of agriculturist and activist Jonas Joseph Burgos even before it could thoroughly investigate the matter.

Pimentel said the AFPs official statement clearing itself of involvement in the abduction suffers from credibility in the face of available information, including testimonies of witnesses, that he was snatched by eight military-looking men while having lunch inside the Ever Gotesco mall in Commonwealth Avenue April 28.

He criticized the AFP for giving the standard reply that soldiers are not involved in the involuntary disappearance and summary killings of political activists even if available circumstantial and direct evidence points to the military as the perpetrators of these atrocities.

Pimentel said this has happened in many cases of abductions and disappearances of activists and leaders of militant leftist groups such as Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan both students of the University of the Philippines who were taken away by armed men in a boarding house in Hagonoy, Bulacan last November.

He said the abduction of Jonas Joseph Burgos, son of the late journalist and freedom-fighter Burgos, Jr. illustrate once more the cruel and despicable acts that the powers-that-be and its armed enforcers are capable of doing against their perceived enemies or threats to their privileged positions.

Pimentel called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to launch a no-nonsense effort to look for Jonas Joseph Burgos and save his life if she does not want to further alienate and disappoint the members of the media who have been deeply disturbed about this abduction case.

I ask President Arroyo, the National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, Department of Justice and Department of National Defense to help rescue Jonas Joseph Burgos, son of Jose and Edith Burgos from his captors. Jonas is a law abiding farmer. There is absolutely no reason why he should be abducted, he said.

Pimentel also bemoaned that the lackluster efforts of the Arroyo government and law enforcement agencies in solving the spate of political and media killings has only emboldened the death squads and their handlers to carry on their evil business.