Trigger warning: Description of state violence, torture, enforced disappearance
MANILA – For two years, not a single hearing was done on the torture and enforced disappearance complaints filed by environmental defenders Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano against military officials before the Office of the Ombudsman. Despite this, the case was dismissed.
“Two years. No hearings. Then dismissal,” Kalikasan said in a statement. “Instead of reckoning with the evidence provided by the [victim] environmental defenders, the Ombudsman gave greater weight to the accounts of security officials and invoked the presumption of regularity in their favor.”
Tamano and Castro were affiliated with the Alyansa para sa Pagtatanggol sa Kabuhayan, Paninirahan, at Kalikasan ng Manila Bay (AKAP KA Manila Bay) when they were abducted on September 2, 2023 while conducting consultation and research with fishing communities affected by the Manila Bay reclamation projects.
Read: 2 envi activists missing
Read: 2 environmental activists defy military, expose abduction
The two later appeared at a press conference on September 19, 2023 organized by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) which claimed that they were rebel returnees. In front of government officials and military forces, they revealed during the press conference that they were abducted by state security agents.
The cases filed against the state security officials were arbitrary detention, grave coercion, torture, enforced disappearance, grave misconduct, grave abuse of authority, oppression, and prejudicial conduct.
“The abduction of Tamano and Castro represents just one case among hundreds of victims of state-sponsored violence,” Kalikasan said. “[It] is not an isolated case but a deliberate strategy—and we will not allow it to go unchallenged.”
The Ombudsman ruled in favor of the accused state security officials, stating that survivors “failed to discharge such quantum of proofs needed to establish prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction and substantial evidence against all respondents.”
The Ombudsman decided with only the affidavits submitted by the complainants (Castro and Tamano) and the respondents, namely National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya; National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) Regional Director Niño Balagtas; 70th Infantry Battalion – Philippine Army (IBPA) Commanding Officer Ronnel Dela Cruz and his members Junrey Caballeda, Sherwin Momo, Justin Gutierrez, Manny Trinidad Timbol; several members of the 70th IBPA; aliases “Allan,” “Jak,” “CJ,” and “Bryan”; retired military officials Mario Jose Chico and Mark Leo Santos, both affiliated to the NTF-ELCAC; and Philippine National Police (PNP) officers Carlito Buco, Jr. and Silvestre Colanza.
Read: After being released from military custody, 2 activists vow to continue fight vs reclamation
Read: Victims of abduction recount how and why they lived with Bataan coastal communities
The Ombudsman said that the evidence presented by Castro and Tamano “failed to prove” their accusations. The pieces of evidence scrutinized by the Ombudsman were (1) the logo of the 70th Infantry Battalion on the laptop of one of their interrogators reported by Castro, (2) the admission of their interrogators that they are affiliated with the military, police, and the NTF-ELCAC, and (3) the presence of Justin Gutierrez, who introduced himself as a soldier implicated for inquiring about Castro’s whereabouts, and a certain “Bryan” who was among those who guarded the two during their abduction, at the camp of the 70th Infantry Battalion.
“Other than these, the complainants (Castro and Tamano) failed to submit any concrete evidence supporting their assertion that their abduction and detention were perpetrated by the agents of the state,” the Ombudsman said.
The Ombudsman also stated that between the conflicting narratives, the office gives more credence to the testimonies of the military officials because it ruled that the statements of Castro and Tamano are contradictory for insisting to identify that their abductors are soldiers from the 70th Infantry Battalion.
Revictimization
“It even treated the absence of extensive physical injuries and the survivors’ inability to disclose their ordeal immediately – while under military control—as grounds to doubt their testimony,” Kalikasan said. “This reasoning revictimizes survivors, disregards the coercive conditions of captivity, and rewards state institutions for concealing the identities of perpetrators.”
The decision to give more weight to the state security officials’ narrative contradicts the Supreme Court (SC)’s decision last year which denied the motion filed by military and police questioning the protective writs issued to them.
In its decision, the SC said that Castro and Tamano provided a detailed and convincing account of abduction and coercion, denying the government’s motion for lack of merit.
“While prima facie evidence is enough to issue the writ, the petitioners’ (Castro and Tamano) detailed and convincing account of abduction and coercion to sign false affidavits went beyond the minimum required and amounted to substantial evidence,” the SC said in a press release.
The Municipal Trial Court of Plaridel Bulacan dismissed grave oral defamation charges that the Department of Justice recommended against Castro and Tamano on June 4, 2025.
“We demand accountability for the abduction and ongoing harassment of environmental defenders. We call on the Philippine justice system to stand with victims, not with state actors who commit atrocities,” Kalikasan said. “We will not stay silent as the state escalates its attacks on those who defend our lands and environment.”
The Philippines remains Asia’s deadliest country for environmental defenders for more than a decade, according to international watchdog Global Witness. The group also identified red-tagging and the weaponization of criminal law as weapons against Filipino environmental defenders, reporting two-thirds of defender arrest cases involving the military. (AMU, RTS, DAA)
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