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.
**
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.
**
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].
xxxx
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.
**
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.