LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza
Writ for James Balao; songs for Mark Anthony

BAGUIO CITY -- On Oct. 28, our untiring Baguio musicians will again gather at the Amarillo Bar and Restaurant (formerly Spirits Disco), this time to sing for Mark Anthony Viray, a 10-yr old boy who is presently undergoing chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma (body tissue cancer).

Dubbed “Songs for Mark Anthony” the Benefit Concert and “once-in-a-bluemoon” gathering of old and new musicians will feature the Cruise Control, the BluGraz Band, Dalluyon, Shakilan, Munay (flute artist from Bolivia), Mix Emotions, Nyt Moves, lawyer-musicians Rolly Vergara, Bubut Olarte, Nes Mondok, Angie Cabrera and Sara; publisher-editor Alfred Dizon with Art Mina, Brix, Liza and Sumitra, Dick Oakes and many others.

Lawyer Delmar Carino, Benguet Press Club president, whose heart is dedicated to worthwhile projects such as this, said he will also perform a duet with TV partner Joey Zambrano of the Philippine Information Agency.

Pigeon Lobien, president of the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club (BCBC) that is one of the sponsors of the concert said he will try to do a trio with board of directors Thom Picana and Zaldy Comanda.

Aside from BCBC and the management of Amarillo Bar that offered the concert venue for free, the benefit show is also being sponsored by the DPS-PNR barangay neighborhood and the Baguio City Hall Public Information Office headed by Ramon Dacawi.

Sponsor tickets will be sold at P200.00 and general admission tickets will be at P50.00. Help Mark Anthony. See you October 28, Tuesday evening at the Amarillo Bar.
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A petition for the issuance of a Writ of Amparo to order several government offices, including the Office of the President, to “disclose where James Balao is detained, have him released immediately considering his unlawful detention since his abduction on September 17, 2008 and to cease and desist from further inflicting harm upon his person” has been filed last October 8 with a regional trial court in Benguet.

The new law which may be resorted to in cases of missing persons, especially those suspected to have been abducted by government forces, faces public scrutiny as to its usefulness and helpfulness in surfacing victims of abductions allegedly perpetrated by the state itself.

On October, 2007, Chief Justice Reynato Puno declared the legal conception of these writs – Amparo and her twin, the supplemental Philippine Habeas Data. He proclaimed the twin writs as his “legacy to the Filipinos,” at the same time admitting the inefficacy of Habeas Corpus, “since government officers repeatedly failed to produce the body of missing persons upon mere submission of the defense of alibi.”

With the issuance of the writ, the court may order all officers in control of police and military camps, detention facilities, safehouses and other offices to allow the entry of authorized persons for the purpose of inspecting the same, even to survey and photograph properties or relevant objects that may have any bearing with the case of the missing person.

The court’s issuance of the writ further directs officers of the police and military, as well as other executive agencies and offices to produce all documents that contain evidence relevant to the petition, particularly the Order of Battle (OB) which includes the name of James Balao and his dossier in the AFP and PNP offices, and other relevant documents.

I was in high school when Martial Law was declared in this country. It was a time when every activist feared of being listed in the OB of the military or police. Honestly, I thought the “democracies” of Tita Cory or FVR or Erap scrapped all of that.

I was wrong and so were many of us. Nothing changed of the watch under Marcos’es Martial Law and the democracies of those that followed after him. Today, it is even worse. While other remedies are hoped for, the petition for the writ may be one of the Balao family’s chances of seeing James again – if the law is executed properly and if the respondents led by President Gloria obey their own courts’ orders. – ozram.666@gmail.com