AN Army junior officer tagged by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) as one of those who abducted activist Jonas Burgos in 2007 has been summoned to appear before a “technical working group [TWG]” of the military to shed light on his alleged participation in the kidnapping.
Col. Domingo Tutaan, head of the Armed Forces Human Rights Office, said he has ordered Maj. Harry Baliaga to make himself available to the TWG which will look into his alleged role in the April 28, 2007 kidnapping of Burgos.
Baliaga, a lieutenant at the time, was identified by witnesses as among those who seized Burgos in a mall in Quezon City. He was expected to appear before investigators on Monday afternoon.
Tutaan hinted that Baliaga would be restricted to quarters and will be made available in any investigation relating to the case.
The CHR released on Friday the results of its investigation into the Burgos case, where it directly identified Baliaga as the one who snatched the victim, and also issued several recommendations.
In identifying Baliaga, the CHR noted the statements of Jeffrey Cabintoy and Elsa Agasang, who were at the restaurant at the time Burgos was seized. The CHR recommended that both be placed under the witness-protection program.
In response to the report, the Armed Forces chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eduardo Oban, directed Tutaan to convene an investigative body and act on the CHR findings.
Tutaan said the body is composed of the Inspector General, the Provost Marshal, the Judge Advocate General’s and the chief of the Human Rights Office. The body was given until Wednesday to submit its recommendations to the chief of staff.
“We will resolve it immediately and come up with findings,” said Tutaan.
The Armed Forces spokesman, Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta, still refused to confirm the claim that soldiers were behind the kidnapping and disappearance of Burgos.
Meanwhile, Tutaan said they will also revisit the results of the Army’s investigation into the torture of soldier-candidates in the Bicol region in 2008, whose perpetrators the Department of Justice want investigated and charged.
Tutaan said the torture, supposedly done by trainors administering the “escape- and -evasion course” under the Army’s training module and whose video was uploaded on YouTube by the National Democratic Front in Bicol on Sunday, has been investigated three years ago.
Mabanta said the investigation resulted in the phasing out of the training program a year later.
Both Tutaan and Mabanta said there was no justification for such acts even if they were done in the course of training. “We will never tolerate and condone such actions,” said Tutaan.
The video of the torture was allegedly taken by one of the candidate-soldiers, Pfc. Jayson Cerdon, through his cellular telephone. Cerdon was killed by the rebels in Gubat, Sorsogon, last year.
The cellular telephone was recovered by soldiers from the body of Eleuterio Mangampo, secretary of the NPA’s Front Committee 79, who was killed in a firefight with soldiers on October 20 also last year in Barcelona, Sorsogon.
Relatedly, troops from the Army’s 4th Infantry “Diamond” Division seized two M-16 rifles, two M-1 Garand rifles and rifle parts from rebels in Agusan del Sur on Sunday.
