Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) founding member James Moy Balao has been missing for six months. Ironically, the anniversary of his abduction by five armed men who warned witnesses away by claiming to be policemen was marked by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales rejecting European Union concerns about continuing summary killings and disappearances.
BY MARILOU GUIEB
Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Posted by Bulatlat
BAGUIO CITY — Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) founding member James Moy Balao has been missing for six months. Ironically, the anniversary of his abduction by five armed men who warned witnesses away by claiming to be policemen was marked by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales rejecting European Union concerns about continuing summary killings and disappearances.
The CPA claims state complicity in Balao’s disappearance –maintaining it to be part of “a systematic and desperate move of the State against members and officers of the CPA in its ‘counter-terrorism and anti-insurgency’ campaign.”
The European Parliament passed a lengthy and strongly-worded resolution on March 12 expressing “grave concern” over the “the hundreds of cases of extrajudicial killings of political activists and journalists…and the role that the security forces have played in orchestrating and perpetrating those murders.”
Gonzales responded a week later on March 17 admitting there were still killings, but flatly denying any state involvement in them. He spoke to the media in Manila the very day the family and friends of James Balao marked the sixth month of his abduction. Next week Balao will have been missing for more than 200 days.
Balao’s family and friends have accused the Philippine National Police (PNP) and military intelligence units of being behind his disappearance – a charge rejected by the authorities. Yet two months ago, a regional judge effectively blamed the government by agreeing to a writ of amparo on behalf of the missing activist’s family –and demanding the “State disclose where Balao is.”
Balao, 47, disappeared on September 17 in Lower Tomay, La Trinidad, Benguet near Baguio City. Eyewitnesses claimed he was abducted by five men in civilian clothes who jumped out of a Toyota Revo or Mitsubishi Adventure van and handcuffed him as he was making his way home. At least one of the men was said to be armed with an Armalite rifle. Reports claim Balao’s abductees told onlookers he was ‘a drug pusher’ and was being taken to Camp Dangwa, the regional headquarters of the PNP. The police deny responsibility for his abduction.
