Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70)

Contact Person. Prof. Guillermo Ponce De Leon

Phone: 818-749-0272

June 25, 2009

Open Letter to Mrs. Edith Burgos: On The Unending Chain of Injustice in the Philippines

The Kilusang Dekada 70 (KD70 ) empathize with Mrs.Edith Burgos on her frustration over the promotion of fascist AFP officers implicated on her son’s disappearance

Following the promotion of three military officers linked to the disappearance of her son, Jonas Mrs. Burgos exclaimed: “Dear Lord, when will all this injustice end?”

In a statement, the Burgos family yesterday said it considered the promotion of Lieutenant Colonels Noel Clement, Melquiades Feliciano and Edison Caga to full colonel as a “reward,” which could only result in more enforced disappearances of activists.

“I am truly scared because of the message this promotion delivers ... (W)ill there be more enforced disappearances so that those who aim to be promoted will gain favor in the eyes of the superiors? The Commander in Chief maybe?” Burgos said, referring to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Burgos expressed the belief that the officers’ promotion indicated that enforced disappearances and abductions were a “state policy” under the Arroyo administration.

US Puppet Regimes Militarist policy

For the information of Mrs. Burgos, the long unending injustice has been perpetrated under all the successive regimes after the much-hated US-Marcos dictatorship. Mrs. Aquino, Mr. Ramos, Joseph Estrada and now-Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo all promoted AFP and PNP officers who were involved in gross human rights violations.

General Fidel Ramos became Aquino’s AFP chief, defense minister and president been his obnoxious human rights record. Although he was implicated in the Mendiola Massacre of 1987, he eventually became president for six years.

All these presidents promoted AFP and PNP officers as AFP chiefs or PNP chiefs, areas commanders and up the ladder. The worst, they are even promoted to the civilian bureaucracy after they served martial law, promoted torture and killings as well as forced disappearances and detention of activists for the past 23 years.

The worse of all never punished any one who committed human rights violation except an army lieutenant who eventually was finally punished by the NPA. The US-supported regimes and even GMA is only perpetrating the same policy even since.

Grave Injustice rewarded with promotions

The three newly promoted Army officers had been implicated in the abduction of Jonas, son of the late press freedom icon Jose “Joe” Burgos, after the license plate of the van supposedly used in the kidnapping turned up at the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion in Norzagaray, Bulacan.

The Burgos family had filed a petition to cite Clement and Feliciano for contempt in connection with a habeas corpus case after the two officers failed to explain in court the trail of the license plate. The case remains pending in the Supreme Court.

Clement was the commanding officer of the 56th IB when a vehicle with Plate No. TAB 194 was impounded, the same plate number of the vehicle which witnesses said was used by Jonas’ abductors in April 2007.

Feliciano was the 56th IB commanding officer at the time of Jonas’ disappearance. Caga was the commanding officer of the 69th IB, which took over the 56th IB’s camp in Norzagaray and under whose watch the license plate of the impounded vehicle reportedly got lost.

We ask Mrs. Burgos to understand this situation and not wonder anymore when will all of this end. It will only end after the US-supported militarist and fascist regime has been eliminated and true democracy and social liberation has been achieved.

Until then we should expect more brutal and repressive measures and expect no justice under these regimes.

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