In a win for environmental advocates Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano, the Supreme Court issued a writ of Amparo, habeas data, and a temporary protection order (TPO) in their favor, providing interim legal protection against their abductors.
The high court, in its decision on October 24, 2023, that was publicized on Thursday, affirmed that there is more than enough evidence to issue these legal protections.
The protections were issued after Castro and Tamano were kidnapped by unidentified men while preparing for relief operations on September 2, 2023, in Orion, Bataan.
The environmental activists alleged that the unidentified men, who forced them to sign an affidavit of surrender, were members of the 70th Infantry Batallion (IB). Castro and Tamano then rebuked the 70th IB in a daring press conference that was supposed to highlight their “surrender.”
A writ of Amparo is issued to people whose “life, liberty, and security” are threatened by a public official while habeas data is issued to people whose privacy is threatened also by a public official.
Meanwhile, the TPO prohibits members of the military, police, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, and their agents from approaching the advocates.
The court cited an interview by National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director-General Jonathan Malaya–where he threatened to “expose all information [the NSC] has on Jonila and Jhed” and charge them with perjury after the press conference–as evidence for a threat on the safety of the environmental advocates caused by a public official.
Moreover, the court also based its decision on affidavits and findings of a fact-finding probe by human rights organizations.
In these findings, rights organizations affirmed that the unidentified men, who repeatedly threatened the lives of Castro and Tamano if they did not “surrender as rebels,” were indeed members of the 70th IB.
There have been 11 state-related disappearances since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s term as of November 2023. It is a common tactic by the state for disappeared persons to appear again as “surrenderees” or “captured rebels.”
However, Castro and Tamano’s statement in the Armed Forces of the Philippines's (AFP) presser defied this tactic. The Department of Justice (DOJ), in a resolution dated December 12, 2023, that was only made public on January 29, indicted the two for supposedly embarrassing the AFP, charging them with grave oral defamation.
The TPO is only a reprieve issued by the court for 30 days and was provided without a formal request from the advocates. To make the protection order permanent, the Court of Appeals would have to hear the case as well on an expedited basis.
Environmental advocacy group Kalikasan considers the Supreme Court’s decision as a direct counter to the charge by the DOJ, saying that the court agreeing there was probable cause of enforced disappearance disproves the military’s narrative that the activists “voluntarily surrendered.”
“This is a monumental victory for environmental defenders, but the fight is still not over. We will not stop demanding justice until the perpetrators of enforced disappearances are held accountable. And, as always, we will continue to fight alongside Jhed and Jonila as they campaign against the destruction brought about by reclamation projects in Manila Bay,” Kalikasan said on Friday. ●
