A combo picture shows the still-missing farmer-activist Jonas Burgos and Major Harry Baliaga Jr., whose arrest has just been ordered by a QC court. INTERAKSYON.COM FILE
A Quezon City court has ordered the arrest of an Army major implicated in the abduction of the still-missing farmer-activist Jonas Joseph Burgos after finding probable cause in the charge of arbitrary detention filed against him.
"After personally evaluating the evidence in support of the above-entitled case, consisting of the affidavits of witnesses, the Information, the Resolution of the prosecutor and all other evidences attached to the record, this Court finds that probable cause exists against the accused MAJOR HARRY BALIAGA JR. and that there is a necessity of placing him under immediate custody in order not to frustrate the ends of justice," said Judge Alfredo Ruiz II of QC Regional Trial Court Branch 216, in an order, a copy of which was obtained by InterAksyon.com.
Baliaga was identified by witnesses among those who dragged Burgos, then 37 years old, from a restaurant at Ever Gotesco on Commonwealth Avenue as he lunched alone on April 28, 2007.
Jonas's mother Edita had earlier pleaded with Baliaga Jr., in an open letter, to come clean and reveal all that he knows about her son's disappearance and name the masterminds of the deed, which has been internationally assailed in human rights circles.
Jonas is the third child of Edita and the late world press freedom icon Jose G. Burgos Jr., who trailblazed in the so-called "Mosquito Press" or alternative media that covered critically the Marcos dictatorship. The elder Burgos was jailed by President Marcos' military in December 1982 after a raid on his newspapers offices, which the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional two years later.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/73187/qc-court-issues-arrest-warrant-on-army-major-in-jonas-burgos-abduction
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