Months after summons
have been issued by a Quezon City Regional Trial Court, several respondent
military personnel and police officers in the P15-million damage suit filed by
the Morong 43 health workers remained officially unnotified of the charges. The
National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), counsel for the complainants, asked
the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Brig. Gen. Herbert Yambing of the
Office of the Provost Marshall General of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) to locate and provide information on the “missing” respondents but to no
avail.
“This is tantamount
to a cover-up of the military and the police for their peers whose
accountability is being sought for their involvement in brazenly violating the
rights of the Morong 43 health workers,” said the NUPL through its Assistant
Secretary for Legal Services Atty. Ephraim Cortez.
Addressed at their last known assignments, the summons
against Gen. Jorge Segovia, Lt. Col. Cristobal Zaragosa, Col. Aurelio Baladad,
Lt. Col. Jaime Abawag, Maj. Manuel Tabion and P/Supt. Marion Balonglong were
returned unserved on the ground that they were no longer assigned thereat.
“With their cynical
unwillingness to cooperate, state forces have put up another roadblock to
justice that effectively frustrates efforts to seek accountability for human
rights violations against the Morong 43 health workers,” said Cortez.
In a letter sent to the NUPL, Yambing declined to give
information on the whereabouts of the military personnel purportedly because
his office has “no direct knowledge” on the whereabouts of the military
officers and that he supposedly has no authority to release such information.
On the other hand, the PNP, through Records Management Division Chief Manuel
Gaerlan, CEO VI, said in its reply that the names of P/Supt. Balolong and
P/Supt. Nubleza, who have been publicly known to be part of the service,
strangely do not appear in the roster of the PNP.
“Either they are
deliberately hiding any
information about those involved or they are giving us a run-around through
technicalities in disclosing very simple
standard details about their personnel for the purpose of serving summons, or
both” Atty. Cortez said.
The summons to the respondents in what is considered the
first civil case for human rights violations against former President Gloria
Arroyo and her security forces were issued last November 28, 2011. The Morong
43 health workers were illegally arrested in Morong, Rizal on February 2010.
They were illegally arrested, detained, and tortured on the baseless charges of
being members of the New People’s Army (NPA). Against all odds, they had filed
the countersuit way back in April 2011.
Aside from Segovia, Zaragosa,
Baladad, Abawag, Tabion, Balonglong and former President Arroyo, the other
respondents in the case are former Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales, Gen.
Victor Ibrado, and Gen. Delfin Bangit.
“This obstructionist
attitude demonstrates the manifest bias of the military and the police in
favour of those from their ranks who commit rights violations,” Atty. Cortez
said.
“And it shows once again how hard and sometimes
frustrating it is to pursue justice for human rights violations under the present
legal and judicial system and how
impunity is perpetrated before, during and after a violation,” NUPL Secretary
General Atty. Edre U. Olalia added. “But
we shall not let up. They cannot just get away with it just like that.”#
No comments:
Post a Comment