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IN his
lifetime, the late press freedom icon Jose “Joe” Burgos
Jr. unwittingly gained the freedom of a young student
who was arrested by the military, but declared missing
by the family.
Up to
his death, Joe never knew of the good deed he has done
for the youth whose political persuasion made him an
enemy of martial law.
Joe’s
widow, Edita Tronqued Burgos, found out about her
husband’s heroic act a few months after the
disappearance of her son Jonas on April 28, 2007, and
she heard it firsthand from the former inmate-turned
lawyer himself, Neri Colmenares.
The two
met at a forum on disappearances held after Jonas was
allegedly abducted.
Mrs.
Burgos narrated the incident in her speech after
accepting the Fourth Ka Pepe Diokno Award of Recognition
as a Champion of Human Rights posthumously conferred to
her husband by the De La Salle Professional Schools’
Ramon V. del Rosario Graduate School of Business and the
Jose W. Diokno Foundation Inc.
“Neri
was a student and a minor when he was picked up and
jailed after martial law was declared [on September 21,
1972]. He would have stayed forgotten in jail if it were
not for an editorial denouncing the violation of his
rights, which Joe Burgos published in
Malaya,” the widow recalled in her speech.
The
editorial somehow reached Marcos at Malacañang, and
Colmenares was subsequently set free.
“Of
course, it is too bad that Joe never learned how he was
able to help a young student regain his freedom. But I
know that the memories that stay with people like Neri,
of how Joe’s work had affected his life, somehow helps
sweeten the scent of the flowers that mark my husband’s
grave,” Burgos said.
Dean
Philip Ella Juico, in his remarks during the conferment
rites, said that during martial law, Jose Burgos “held
high the torch, not just of press freedom, but of truth,
justice and human rights as well.”
Juico
pointed out that because of
Burgos’s
harsh criticisms on the Marcos dictatorship, the
journalist became the object of oppressive acts by the
government and the military.
Apart
from raiding
Burgos’s editorial offices and publications, his printing equipment
and vehicles were confiscated, and he was arrested and
jailed without due process.
Disregarding the risks,
Burgos persisted in publishing what was then called the
“alternative press” or “mosquito press” that outlasted
martial law and the Marcos dictatorship. |
