LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The Armed Forces of the Philippines barred cause-oriented groups and the family of James Balao from searching for the missing Cordillera activist in Manila military camps like Camp Aguinaldo last week.
AFP officials said only personnel of the government’s Commission on Human Rights may do the search in AFP camps.
But at Camp Crame, the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police, they were allowed to search the custodial center.
This, after a witness identified only as Jun told the Regional Trial Court Oct. 23 during the first hearing on the petition for a writ of amparo that men who looked like cops abducted Balao here at Barangay Tomay on Sept. 17.
Personnel of the intelligence arm of the AFP had been tagged as Balao’s abductors after a van whose plate number Balao texted to his family and AFP members which had been tailing him was found at the headquarters of the army at Camp Allen in Baguio.
A writ of amparo is an inspection order directing public officers who control military and police detention facilities where a detainee is allegedly kept to allow authorized persons “to inspect, measure and survey the property or any related object or operation.”
The second hearing on the writ was held Thursday.
The witness said the cops shouted to onlookers they were arresting Balao due to his “involvement with illegal drugs.”
The Cordillera People’s Alliance wherein Balao is a member however denied this saying he didn’t have a history of illegal drug abuse.
Chief Supt. Eugene Martin, Cordillera police director, said they did not take Balao, adding police were not interested in him.
Martin said they were still convincing Balao’s colleagues to identify the people with whom Balao had had direct contact with while he was supposedly traveling from Baguio City to Tomay.
Police earlier theorized wranglings within the CPA could be a motive behind his disappearance, but the CPA dismissed this, insisting that Balao was snatched by the police or military.
Members of the International Solidarity Mission and local non-government organizations urged the government to “release or surface” rights activist James Balao last week even as his group, the Cordillera People’s Alliance said there were strong indications he was still alive basing from reliable sources.
The court earlier subpoenaed President Macapagal-Arroyo to appear during the hearing. But the Ofice of the Solicitor General represented her.
The Commission on Human Rights has also started its investigation into Balao’s disappearance amid growing pressure on the government from both local and international organizations to immediately find him.
In a resolution Oct.10, the CHR pledged to investigate and monitor developments on the case of Balao, who it considers a victim of enforced disappearance.
“Based on the initial information we have gathered, James Balao and his family have been under regular surveillance by unidentified persons since the first week of June 2008, and (Balao) is allegedly listed in the dossier of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as the head of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Education Bureau in the Ilocos and Cordillera regions,” CHR Commissioner De Lima earlier said.
In the same resolution, the CHR asked the Philippine National Police to assist it in the investigation, and the AFP to help locate Balao.
The CHR said it would hold dialogues with top PNP and AFP officials to discuss Balao’s case and the disappearance of other people alleged to be CPP members.
Balao, a descendant of a large Chinese-Japanese clan in Benguet, is the president of the Oclupan Clan Association.
In 1984, he was among those who founded CPA, which advocates the protection and promotion of the rights to ancestral domain and self-determination, especially of indigenous communities.AD
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