The Transnational Campaign to Find Jonas Burgos

*photo credit: ActAlliance

A group of students associated sought to raise awareness for the cause of Jonas Burgos. Melissa Poquiz, recently opened a dialogue about Jonas’ enforced disappearance with the community in a program at the UC Davis Student Community Center.

Poquiz said in an interview, “We [Filipino Americans] think we’re disconnected to our homeland, but we are connected. The US gives military aid to the Philippine Army. In a sense, we’re accomplice for these political abductions and human rights violations.” According to a Reuters article dated May 3, 2012, the United States tripled military aid to the Philippines during the 2012 fiscal year. The same source reveals information from the U.S. Embassy in Manila that shows the Philippines received nearly $500 million in military aid from the U.S since 2002.

In an email correspondence with Elmer Cato, First Secretary and Consul of the Press and Information Section of the Philippine Embassy, he shared sympathies with the Burgos Family. “[I] started as a cubreporter for Ang Pahayagang Malaya for many years under our publisher Jose Burgos, Jonas's father. Like the rest of my Malaya colleagues, we felt the pain of the Burgos family over the disappearance of Jonas.” Despite these sentiments, the Philippine government has yet to contribute a statement for this article regarding Jonas’ disappearance or Filipino-American concerns regarding the United States’ military aid to the Philippines.

On the Free Jonas Burgos Movement blog, maintained by Jonas’ mother Edita Burgos, posts about Jonas’ disappearance go back to 2007. On the first page is a day counter of how long Jonas has been missing, a row of videos dedicated to Jonas, and a blog on Jonas’ 43rd birthday, 6 years after his disappearance. The post on Sunday March 31,, 2013 is of a recently surfaced photo of Jonas in captivity. According to Eusebio San Diego, a family friend of the Burgos family, Jonas worked teaching modern farming techniques to farmers in Bulacan when he went missing. “He was mistaken for being an underground leader. He was a progressive activist yes, but he was not a communist, to put it bluntly,” he said in a telephone interview on this past Monday.

Filipino American human rights activist Melissa Roxas has been aware of the Jonas’ case since 2007. Her website, justiceformelissa.org, hosts the same picture of Jonas at the top of the page. On April 4th, she wrote a blog on the Philippine Special 7th Division of the Court of Appeals recent ruling that Jonas’ case was an enforced disappearance by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Roxas doesn’t see Jonas’ disappearance as just a Philippine national issue.

Roxas is a survivor of enforced disappearance by the AFP herself. She shared in an email that the photo of Jonas reminded her of her own torture. She described, “No one knows where you are, you don’t even know where you are. You don’t know when the next torture session will happen.”

Roxas shared that she and Burgos were both abducted during the Arroyo administration. According to Roxas, the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has resulted in one of the highest incidences of human rights violations since Martial Law, under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. However, she illuminated that these instances of disappearances are not tokens. She explained, “President Aquino III’s administration has implemented Oplan Bayanihan, a counter-insurgency program modeled after the U.S.’s own counter-insurgency guide of 2009. [It] continues the same deadly policy targeting communities, progressive organizations, and political activists.”

Roxas was supported by the organization Desaparecidos after she surfaced in 2009. That’s when she said she met Edita Burgos, who serves as the chair of the organization. Although she never met Jonas in person, Roxas said that she, the Burgos family, and other activists around the world have never stopped the campaign to find Jonas. She expressed, “Many victims, their families, and witnesses have testified at the risk of their lives to shed light on the heinous human rights violations committed by the Philippine military.” Roxas believes that it’s time for people to start learning about the stories of the disappeared activists in the Philippines like Jonas.

The information published online regarding the Find Jonas Burgos Movement shows the current demands for the Philippine Government to surface Jonas Burgos and to prosecute those responsible for his enforced disappearance. Roxas has disclosed that Senator Boxer supported restricting $3 million in Philippine military aid in 2009, after Roxas’ disappearance. By spreading the word, there is hope to stimulate the local Fil-Am community’s political and social awareness along with its activism.