THE Court of Appeals has denied the application of protective writs by environmental activists Jonela Castro and Jhed Tamano who have been red-tagged.
“All told, this Court finds that the privilege of the writs of amparo and habeas data cannot be granted to petitioners for their failure to establish their claims by substantial evidence,” the appellate court’s former Special Eight Division said through Associate Justice Associate Lorenza Bordios.
“The records are bereft of any proof linking the actual abductors to any agency of the government,” it added.
National Security Adviser Eduardo Año yesterday welcomed the decision which he said “is an unequivocal vindication for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).”
Año, who is also task force’s vice chairman, also said the decision “clearly exposes the case as a mere harassment and baseless case against the task force.”
A writ of amparo (a Spanish word that means protection) is a special writ to protect or enforce a constitutional right other than physical liberty while a writ of habeas data is a petition asking the court to compel the respondent to delete or destroy damaging information.
Concurring with the ruling are Associate Justices Fernanda Lampas Peralta and Jaime Fortunato Caringal.
The appellate court also held Castro and Tamano failed to substantiate their claim that they were subjected to any form of threat to life, liberty or security during their stay at the headquarters of the Army’s 70th Infantry Battalion from September 12 to 15 last year.
The two, according to the CA, “miserably failed to prove the existence of an imminent or continuing threat” since being released in September last year.
To recall, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said the two surrendered to the Bulacan-based 70th Infantry Battalion. They also linked the two to the New Peoples’ Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a charge the communist movement has denied.
The NTF-ELCAC presented in September 2023 the two in a media briefing to debunk claims that they were forcibly abducted by security forces. However, Castro and Tamano surprised the NTF-ELCAC when in the presence of the media, they insisted they were kidnapped by the military.
DISSENT
Associate Justice Associate Emily San Gaspar-Gito, in her dissent to the majority ruling, stressed that the Court should not just fold its arms and ignore the threat to Tamano and Castro’s “life, liberty and security and just wait for the irreversible to happen to them.”
“The danger of further harm against petitioners is real, considering that they have recently been victims of enforced disappearance, which is the subject of the instant petition,” she said.
San Gaspar-Gito also said the military should have been made to explain what happened to Tamano and Castro in the days they were missing, or from their alleged abduction on September 2 to their supposed surrender to the Army battalion on September 12.
“Despite the vast machinery and resources of the State, witnesses for the respondents could muster only vague and tentative answers,” the dissenting justice further said.
In February this year, the Supreme Court granted the writs of amparo and habeas data filed by the environmental activists.
The High Court also ruled that they are entitled to a temporary protection order.
In granting their petition, the High Court held that Castro and Tamano “were able to prove by substantial evidence the allegations in their petition meriting the protection of their freedoms through the writs of amparo and habeas data.”
But the SC also directed the CA to conduct a summary hearing on the petition and the other interim relief sought by Castro and Tamano, and after hearing, decide on the petition and the other interim relief sought.
By procedure, it is the appellate court that should conduct a full hearing to decide whether the full protection sought will be granted. — With Victor Reyes
