BALAO et al vs. GMA
G.R. No. 186050
December 13, 2011
FACTS: The siblings of James Balao, and Longid (petitioners), filed with the RTC of La Trinidad, Benguet a Petition for the Issuance of a Writ of Amparo in favor of James Balao who was abducted by unidentified armed men earlier. Named respondents in the petition were then President GMA, Exec Sec Eduardo Ermita, Defense Sec Gilberto Teodoro, Jr., ILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno, National Security Adviser (NSA) Norberto Gonzales, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander . Yano, PNP Police Director General Jesus Verzosa, among others.
James M. Balao is a Psychology and Economics graduate of the UP-Baguio. In 1984, he was among those who founded the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), a coalition of NGOs working for the cause of indigenous peoples in the Cordillera Region.
According to witnesses’ testimony, James was abducted by unidentified men, saying they were policemen and were arresting him for a drugs case and then made to ride a white van.
petitioners prayed for the issuance of a writ of amparo and likewise prayed for (1) an inspection order for the inspection of at least 11 military and police facilities which have been previously reported as detention centers for activists abducted by military and police operatives; (2) a production order for all documents that contain evidence relevant to the petition, particularly the Order of Battle List and any record or dossier respondents have on James; and (3) a witness protection order.
the RTC issued the assailed judgment, disposing as follows:
ISSUE a Writ of Amparo Ordering the respondents to (a) disclose where James is detained or confined, (b) to release James considering his unlawful detention since his abduction and (c) to cease and desist from further inflicting harm upon his person; and
DENY the issuance of INSPECTION ORDER, PRODUCTION ORDER and WITNESS PROTECTION ORDER for failure of herein Petitioners to comply with the stringent provisions on the Rule on the Writ of Amparo and substantiate the same
ISSUE: WON the totality of evidence satisfies the degree of proof required by the Amparo Rule to establish an enforced disappearance.
HELD: NO; The Rule on the Writ of Amparo was promulgated on October 24, 2007 amidst rising incidence of “extralegal killings” and “enforced disappearances.” It was formulated in the exercise of this Court’s expanded rule-making power for the protection and enforcement of constitutional rights enshrined in the 1987 Constitution, albeit limited to these two situations. “Extralegal killings” refer to killings committed without due process of law, i.e., without legal safeguards or judicial proceedings. On the other hand, “enforced disappearances” are attended by the following characteristics: an arrest, detention, or abduction of a person by a government official or organized groups or private individuals acting with the direct or indirect acquiescence of the government; the refusal of the State to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty which places such person outside the protection of law.
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The trial court gave considerable weight to the discussion in the petition of briefing papers supposedly obtained from the AFP indicating that the anti-insurgency campaign of the military under the administration of President Arroyo included targeting of identified legal organizations under the NDF, which included the CPA, and their members, as “enemies of the state.
We hold that such documented practice of targeting activists in the military’s counter-insurgency program by itself does not fulfill the evidentiary standard provided in the Amparo Rule to establish an enforced disappearance.
In the case of Roxas v. Macapagal-Arroyo, the Court noted that the similarity between the circumstances attending a particular case of abduction with those surrounding previous instances of enforced disappearances does not, necessarily, carry sufficient weight to prove that the government orchestrated such abduction. Accordingly, the trial court in this case cannot simply infer government involvement in the abduction of James from past similar incidents in which the victims also worked or affiliated with the CPA and other left-leaning groups.
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The petition further premised government complicity in the abduction of James on the very positions held by the respondents. The Court in Rubrico v. Macapagal-Arroyo had the occasion to expound on the doctrine of command responsibility and why it has little bearing, if at all, in amparo proceedings.
It may plausibly be contended that command responsibility, as legal basis to hold military/police commanders liable for extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, or threats, may be made applicable to this jurisdiction on the theory that the command responsibility doctrine now constitutes a principle of international law or customary international law in accordance with the incorporation clause of the Constitution. Still, it would be inappropriate to apply to these proceedings the doctrine of command responsibility, as the CA seemed to have done, as a form of criminal complicity through omission, for individual respondents’ criminal liability, if there be any, is beyond the reach of amparo. In other words, the Court does not rule in such proceedings on any issue of criminal culpability, even if incidentally a crime or an infraction of an administrative rule may have been committed. As the Court stressed in Secretary of National Defense v. Manalo (Manalo), the writ of amparo was conceived to provide expeditious and effective procedural relief against violations or threats of violation of the basic rights to life, liberty, and security of persons; the corresponding amparo suit, however, “is not an action to determine criminal guilt requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt x x x or administrative liability requiring substantial evidence that will require full and exhaustive proceedings.” Of the same tenor, and by way of expounding on the nature and role of amparo, is what the Court said in Razon v. Tagitis:
It does not determine guilt nor pinpoint criminal culpability for the disappearance [threats thereof or extrajudicial killings]; it determines responsibility, or at least accountability, for the enforced disappearance [threats thereof or extrajudicial killings] for purposes of imposing the appropriate remedies to address the disappearance [or extrajudicial killings].
x x x x
As the law now stands, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in this jurisdiction are not crimes penalized separately from the component criminal acts undertaken to carry out these killings and enforced disappearances and are now penalized under the Revised Penal Code and special laws. The simple reason is that the Legislature has not spoken on the matter; the determination of what acts are criminal x x x are matters of substantive law that only the Legislature has the power to enact. x x x[
Assessing the evidence on record, we find that the participation in any manner of military and police authorities in the abduction of James has not been adequately proven. The identities of the abductors have not been established, much less their link to any military or police unit. There is likewise no concrete evidence indicating that James is being held or detained upon orders of or with acquiescence of government agents. Consequently, the trial court erred in granting amparo reliefs. Such pronouncement of responsibility on the part of public respondents cannot be made given the insufficiency of evidence. However, we agree with the trial court in finding that the actions taken by respondent officials are “very limited, superficial and one-sided.” Its candid and forthright observations on the efforts exerted by the respondents are borne by the evidence on record.
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An inspection order is an interim relief designed to give support or strengthen the claim of a petitioner in an amparo petition, in order to aid the court before making a decision. A basic requirement before an amparo court may grant an inspection order is that the place to be inspected is reasonably determinable from the allegations of the party seeking the order. In this case, the issuance of inspection order was properly denied since the petitioners specified several military and police establishments based merely on the allegation that the testimonies of victims and witnesses in previous incidents of similar abductions involving activists disclosed that those premises were used as detention centers. In the same vein, the prayer for issuance of a production order was predicated on petitioners’ bare allegation that it obtained confidential information from an unidentified military source, that the name of James was included in the so-called Order of Battle. Indeed, the trial court could not have sanctioned any “fishing expedition” by precipitate issuance of inspection and production orders on the basis of insufficient claims of one party.
case digests 