By DOMINIC GUTOMAN
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — “The fight does not stop at the decision of the courts, we will continue to search for justice and all victims of enforced disappearance,” said Francisco “Eco” Dangla, an abduction survivor and environment defender, in an interview with Bulatlat.
On October 31, the Supreme Court released an en banc resolution dated September 9, issuing temporary protection order (TPO) for Dangla while the Court of Appeals (CA) is set to conduct a summary hearing on Dangla’s petition for writs of amparo and habeas data.
The writ of amparo is a legal remedy for the protection of victims of human rights violations while the writ of habeas data seeks to release and destroy personal information being held that threatens one’s life and security and violates the right to privacy. If granted, the writs could restrict the perpetrators of contact and surveillance with the victims and compel them to surrender the information they gathered in the span of the abduction.
“It is part of our victory in the Supreme Court’s issuance of TPO. However, for me, I would still have to relive the trauma in the upcoming hearings. I have to testify in court again, undergo cross-examination, and recall all the things the abductors did to me,” said Dangla in Filipino.
Read: What an abduction and torture survivor is asking the Supreme Court
Dangla was subjected to four days of physical assault and psychological and mental torture with his fellow environmental defender Joxelle “Jak” Tiong, by men claiming to have links with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) from March 24 to 28, 2024. Human rights group Karapatan said that the abductors even tried to recruit them as government agents.
The SC ruling prohibited Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Roy Galido, 702nd Infantry Brigade chief Brig. Gen. Gulliver Señires, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief PGen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, PNP Regional Office I chief PBGen. Lou Evangelista, and Pangasinan Provincial PNP chief PCol. Jeff Fanged and elements under their commands from entering within a radius of one kilometer from Dangla, his places of residence, work and present locations as well as those of his immediate family.
The SC directed the CA to conduct the hearing within five days from the receipt of the resolution and decide the petition within 10 days from the time it was submitted for resolution.
Dangla said that while the issuance may be a glimpse of victory, he continues to assert that the fight does not stop by getting the legal remedies. “Although I am pleased with the order, I believe that many of those who filed for a writ of amparo have either had their cases dismissed or have even been charged with trumped-up charges like Jhed and Jonila.”
On October 29, the CA denied the motion for reconsideration (MR) filed by environmental defenders and abduction survivors Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro for their application of writ of amparo and habeas data. It was the second time that the CA denied both activists the legal protection.
The two activists were also charged with “grave oral defamation” on recommendation of the Department of Justice (DOJ), after exposing that they were abducted by soldiers. Both Castro and Tamano were abducted and presented as New People’s Army (NPA) surrenderers in the press conference of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Read: Environmentalists post bail, continue their fight after abduction
“We already expected this. They already denied our first petition because they believe that there is not enough basis that the state forces were behind our abduction. We are repeating the same process again,” said Tamano in Filipino, in an interview with Bulatlat.
The court said that the smooth transition of custody was insufficient to say that the government was behind the abduction, even if they recognized that the abduction is “credible, straightforward, and worthy of belief.”
“The CA did not recognize that the transition is a manifestation of state involvement. The decision of CA proves that the judicial system in our country makes it harder for victims of enforced disappearance like us to obtain justice,” said Castro in Filipino, in an interview with Bulatlat.
“The state forces have done this so many times. They already knew how to hide possible evidence required in the court. This is deliberate and what is more troubling, the court itself refuses to provide us with such protection and justice,” Castro added.
Meanwhile, Karapatan said that the public should be vigilant in monitoring the development in Dangla’s case, adding that the writs of amparo and habeas data have been a “mixed bag.”
“While there have been positive developments such as the Supreme Court ruling on Bayan Muna activist Siegfred Deduro that expanded the scope of the writs to include red-tagging, other rulings have denied protective writs to abduction survivors Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano as well as to Karapatan, Gabriela and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines whose leaders and members have suffered attacks on their human rights and civil liberties,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary-general of Karapatan, in a statement.
Dangla, Castro, and Tamano joined the families of desaparecidos (victims of enforced disappearance) in the gathering for All Souls Day, strengthening their search and call for justice in the continuing crime against the victims. They offered a poem and also met with the recent survivor Rowena Dasig, who had been missing for two months after being released from Lucena City Jail.
Dangla said, “With or without the TPO and writs, we will continue in our call to surface all victims of enforced disappearance and justice to all victims of human rights violations.”
This also proves that activists and victims of human rights violations must resort to means other than the protective writs to protect and assert their rights, according to Palabay.
“A strong people’s movement remains the best way of protecting human and people’s rights,” she ended. (RTS, RVO)
