More paper cranes in the continuing search for James

3 MIN READ

By KIMBERLIE NGABIT-QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — Together with many other families of victims of enforced disappearances, the Balao family with the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) and the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) continue the excruciatingly painful search for their loved ones.

This April 19, on the 52nd birthday of James Moy Balao, his family, friends and colleagues enjoins everyone to fold paper cranes with a short message for James and help make that one wish come true, for justice for James and all other victims of enforced disappearances as they be reunited with their families.

The Balao family and CHRA also requests everyone to post a photo of the cranes in the Surface James Balao page in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/505384792858585/.

The photos will be collected and mounted on an online exhibit to support the continuing call for the surfacing of James Balao and other desaparecidos and for an end to enforced disappearances. They also encourage those who will join the campaign to post the paper crane on their own Facebook walls or use it as profile pictures.

Everyone is also encouraged to write letters of concern regarding the continuing enforced disappearance of James and send them to the Office of the President, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Department of National Defense (DND), and the PNP.

James is a native of Benguet and a CPA founding member, abducted by heavily armed men who claimed to be police authorities a few meters away from regional head quarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Cordillera in the morning of September 17, 2008.

The folding of a thousand paper cranes is a Japanese tradition called senbazuru. Japanese legend has it that anyone who folds a thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish. Some stories say the 1,000 paper cranes must be completed with in a year and must be kept by the person to make a wish in the end. Cranes in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures and is believed to live a thousand years.

James is also of Japanese descent.

In October 2008, a month after James’ abduction, his family, friends and colleagues folded 1,000 paper cranes and called for his surfacing. The cranes were placed on a giant crane made out of bamboo. The last two paper folded cranes were put in by James’ father, the late Arthur Balao and Jonas Burgos’ mother Edita Burgos.

Arthur, James’ father, died on August 2, 2010; barely a month after his wife Jane and two years after his son’s abduction. Up to his last breath he has but one appeal to Presedent Benigno Aquino III which was for the President to help him find his son.

Jonas was also forcibly taken by heavily armed men at the Ever Gotesco Mall along Commonwealth Avenue in broad day light, April 28, 2007. A few years later, in a landmark decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) should be held responsible for his enforced disappearance.

In related developments, the Supreme Court recently ordered AFP Chief of Staff Lt. General Emmanuel Bautista to reveal the whereabouts of the soldiers involved in the enforced disappearance of Jonas and to submit the military’s After Apprehension Report. The After Apprehension Report was among the new evidences submitted by Jonas’ mother. The high court also ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to provide protection to Edita Burgos.

In an earlier interview during the turn over ceremony at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), Bautista said the AFP will cooperate and abide by the SC’s orders. # nordis.net