(to stream, if on mobile device: pls click “Listen in browser” on the soundcloud pod below)

The evidence admitted by the court in this case of arbitrary detention included the vehicle used to seize Jonas Burgos, which was found in the military camp that the accused commanded over. Even if the three prosecution witnesses who had earlier identified the accused on preliminary investigation as part of the team that seized Jonas, had themselves gone missing before being presented in court, the accused should have at the very least been convicted of being an accessory or an accomplice — the weapon being used to commit the crime (the vehicle used for forcibly transporting Jonas) having been found under his supervision and control inside his military camp. This acquittal was very wrong.

we will find them (music:wordpress playlist; photos: arkibongbayan)

ALL PHOTOS ARE FROM arkibongbayan.org

prayer and protocol

A composite team (photo, part of a bas-relief of Napoleon Abueva)

is usually created whenever various agencies or units have to coordinate with each other; like, if they have the same tactical or short-term objective, they would put together the most skilled personnel of their agency or unit to sit in the team and to work together. If that list of five or six military men (two from MIG of ISAFP, one from the Army, one from the 56^th IB, one from the Escort and Security Battalion) to be invited by the NBI for questioning on the Jonas Burgos “forcible disappearance”, is a composite team, then, we’re probably breaking a protocol for disclosing their identities; and they probably now have to be dismantled; one only hopes that if it were a special operations unit or composite team, that it wasn’t created for the purpose of kidnapping civilians; that their assignment was a legitimate and legal operation and their targets, only combatants. Otherwise, or, stated differently, if their operation is not legitimate and their targets are NGO workers, there is every reason to investigate them. We are not breaking any protocol. These soldiers are supposed to take orders from civilian authority.

Or do we even have a prayer on that?