THE united and determined effort to find missing activist Jonas Burgos entered its first year on Monday with his family firmer in its quest to find him and stronger in its accusation that the military is involved in his disappearance.

During a Mass held at the Saint Peter’s Church on Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, that was offered for the missing Burgos, his relatives and the groups that are looking for him, the mother of the missing activist said they have not lost hope of finding him.

Edita Burgos also pointed an accusing finger at the Armed Forces, a claim that has been repeatedly denied up to now, by the military.

“The military is behind the abduction of Jonas…the military did not only abduct Jonas, but he is with them. Is he still alive? Is he dead? We don’t know,” Edita said.

“We have done all that is humanly possible, and yet we do not still have my son,” the mother added, who earlier admitted that the dire need to see her son or even only his body keeps firing her up and keeping her strong.

Burgos was abducted by four men and a woman at around 1:30 p.m. on April 28, 2007, while he was having a late lunch at the Hapag Kainan Restaurant at the Ever Gotesco shopping mall in Quezon City.

Witnesses said the kidnappers were soldiers in civilian clothes. The claim was later backed by subsequent reports which even said that the men work for the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces (Isafp) or the Intelligence and Security Group of the Army.

A military report listed Burgos as a member of the communist New People’s Army (NPA), although he is widely known as a peasant activist who openly conducts his activity of giving farming training to farmers in Bulacan.

One of the witnesses, Larry Marquez, a mall security guard, said the missing Burgos was dragged by the kidnappers into a waiting maroon-colored Toyota Revo van with license plate TAB-194.

The license plate was later traced to a vehicle that was earlier impounded by members of the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion (IB) in their camp in Norzagaray, Bulacan.

After the license plate was traced to a vehicle which was held inside an Army camp, the Army conducted an administrative investigation as to how it was “lost,” with Maj. Gen. Juanito Gomez, commander of the 7th Infantry Division, which has authority over the 56th  IB, initially saying it was stolen from the military compound sometime between November 2006 and March 2007. He could not say, however, who took the license plates.

While admonishing Lt. Col. Melquiades Feliciano, commander of the 56th IB and two other officers over their “lapses” which gave way to the alleged theft, the Armed Forces chief of staff, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., said the investigation was conducted to determine the facts behind the theft of the license plates and not into Burgos’s kidnapping.

This was used by Esperon in refusing to release the investigation report prepared by the Army Provost Marshal, even to the Court of Appeals (CA) which ordered for a copy.

Edita said that as the Burgos family has already exhausted all possible means to locate Jonas, they are now completely turning to God and are launching a prayer movement on the first year of Burgos’s disappearance.

She asked the Armed Forces to end the “web of deceit and lies” on the case of her son.

Before the Mass, the Burgos family, joined by relatives of other “desaparecidos,” militant groups Bayan and Bayan Muna and other organizations including the human-rights group Karapatan, marched from where Burgos was abducted to the Saint Peter’s Church.

Bishop Antonio Tobias of  Novaliches assailed the prevailing condition of justice and human rights in the country, as he urged the families not to give up in their search for their missing relatives and in their quest to bring about changes in the policy of the government.

Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona said that with the pieces of “circumstantial” evidence that are on hand, like the license plate, the way the abduction was carried out and even with witnesses pointing to soldiers as the culprits, the military should be made to answer.

Guingona noted that with the vast assets of the government, there should be no reason it could not find Burgos.

Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna said the Burgos abduction and all the other cases of disappearances are an indictment of the Arroyo administration, with no less than the President being liable as she is the military’s commander in chief.

Carl Ala, spokesman for the farmer’s group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, who was among those who spoke during a brief program after the Mass, said the cases of political killings and enforced disappearances mostly came from the ranks of peasant farmers.

He even broke into tears while recalling the names of those who have been abducted and killed allegedly by agents of the government.

Sandiganbayan orders arrest of Perez

THE Sandigabayan on Monday ordered the arrest of former justice secretary Henando Perez, his wife and his brother-in-law.

THE Department of Health (DOH) is set to announce Tuesday a total ban on kidney transplants for foreign patients a month after it approved the policy to end the illegal sale of human organs in the country.

THE Senate, particularly its members who “weakened” the cheaper-medicines bill, must account for its refusal to consider, negotiate or even compromise on the generics-only provision, a militant legislator said Monday.

ANY move to change the mandate of the National Food Authority (NFA) in the midst of the rice crisis could only worsen the situation for both the consuming public and the government, Malacañang was warned on Monday.

FORMER Nueva Ecija governor Tomas Joson III and two officials who used to be acting provincial treasurers are now facing criminal complaints before the Ombudsman for alleged malversation of public funds and violation of the Antigraft and Corrupt Practices Act.

THE united and determined effort to find missing activist Jonas Burgos entered its first year on Monday with his family firmer in its quest to find him and stronger in its accusation that the military is involved in his disappearance.

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported to a congressional oversight panel that it had approved in principle the proposals of two companies to automate the August 11 elections in at least three provinces in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

INSTEAD of giving dole-outs to poor families, the government should course cash gifts to nongovernment organizations (NGOs) who provide services to the underprivileged, said Caritas Manila, the charity arm of the Archdiocese of Manila.