City of San Fernando – The Communist Party of the Philippines Central Luzon (CPP-Central Luzon) sees no point in confirming or denying if Jonas Joseph Burgos was a New Peoples’ Army red fighter because “this regime makes no distinction between armed fighters and civilians.”

Salud M. Rojas, Spokesperson of the CPP Central Luzon in a statement emailed on July 24 insisted the Armed Forces of the Philippines would not let Burgos have his day in court.

Rojas further said the AFP cannot even draw a line between combat-capable red fighters and hors d’combat (combatants no longer capable to fight) in waging its “dirty war.”

The CPP Central Luzon’s statement preceded the Supreme Court’s order on the military to produce Burgos despite the latter’s insistence that it was not holding the missing activist. The tribunal’s first division chaired by no less than Chief Justice Reynato Puno also issued a writ of habeas corpus in response to the petition filed by Burgos’ mother Edita.

Army chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino earlier alleged in newspaper reports that Burgos belongs to the New Peoples’ Army Front Committee 2 based in Bulacan, and that they have sufficient basis to believe this through the documents and witnesses they were able to gather.

Burgos, a son of the late Jose Burgos, a crusading journalist who founded the WE Forum and Malaya newspapers, is an agriculturist by profession who trained farmers in Bulacan in organic farming.

He has been missing for three months now since abducted in April 28.

Six elements of the AFP have so far been linked to the abduction. These include Colonel Noel Clement of the Army Escort and Security Division; 1st Lt. Jaime Mendaro and T/Sgt. Jason Roxas of the 56th Infantry Battalion; M/Sgt. Aron Arroyo and Cpl. Joana Francisco both of the Military Intelligence 15 of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and another element of the MIG 15 identified only as T.L. or “Team Leader.”

Rojas said Burgos’ military captors have not budged an inch, despite appeals by the Burgos family, even maligning him and the CPP’s name that his disappearance was due to an internal Party struggle.

She conveyed concern that he may end up as one of the more than 800 victims of extra-judicial killings resulting from the vicious war the Arroyo regime is waging, upon the instigation of US imperialism.

Rojas averred this regime is unmindful of the Protocol II of the Geneva Convention, signed by then President Corazon Aquino on December 10, 1986, which guarantees the rights of civilians and the hors d’combat in an internal war such as the one currently raging in the country.

“The regime also chose to ignore the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed by then President Joseph Estrada on June 10, 1998,” Rojas added further.

“As if she hasn’t enough power to prosecute whom she perceives to be enemies of (her) state, all lumped together as “communists” and “terrorists”, Macapagal-Arroyo had to whip up the Human Security Act to lay down the legal basis of her all-out-war against the people known as the Oplan Bantay Laya 2,” Rojas closed.