The move came following last week’s Supreme Court ruling ordering the Department of Justice and the NBI — a constituent agency under the DOJ — to give protection to the Burgos family in light of new evidence presented in court supposedly pinning the military in Jonas’ disappearance in 2007.
“Hindi pa nare-receive ‘yung SC [ruling], but NBI is willing to do that, that’s why they are set to meet with Mrs. Burgos,” De Lima told reporters in Manila on Monday, adding the NBI is “willing and will be able comply with the SC order.”
Last week, the SC Public Information Office said the high tribunal issued a temporary protection order after considering claims by Jonas’ mother, Edita, that she is fearing for her life because of the “sensitive nature” of the new evidence she presented in court last April 1.
The set of evidence was attached to a petition seeking a re-investigation on her son’s case.
The SC directed “the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation to provide security and protection to the petitioner Edita T. Burgos and her immediate family as provided above, pursuant to Section 14(a) of the Rule on the Writ of Amparo.”
The high court also ordered the two agencies to submit within five days after the receipt of the order a “confidential memorandum” on the security and protection arrangements to be given the Burgos family.
Burgos, a political activist and son of the late press freedom advocate Jose Burgos, was abducted in a restaurant at the Ever Gotesco Mall along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City on April 28, 2007. The license plate number of the vehicle used in his abduction was traced to a vehicle impounded at the camp of the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion in Bulacan.
The military and police conducted separate investigations on the matter and concluded that Jonas was a victim of internal purging in the New People’s Army, while a third probe by the Commission on Human Rights pointed to the military as the culprit behind the abduction.
The Court of Appeals has already held the military “accountable” for the incident, while the SC has ordered the military to submit a confidential report divulging the current whereabouts of the soldiers implicated in the supposed abduction. — Mark Merueñas/KBK, GMA News
