‘PNP can find Palparan if it wants to’
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
The mother of missing University of the Philippines student Karen Empeño said on Saturday she could not believe that Philippine National Police Director General Nicanor Bartolome could say that it was hard to find retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan because the fugitive had received the same training as his hunters.
“That’s baloney,” Concepcion Empeño said in a text message.
“As we say, if they’re serious about it, there’s a way. Otherwise, they can think of many reasons not to do it.”
Palparan, former military commander in northern Luzon, is wanted for the kidnapping and illegal detention of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, also a UP student, in Bulacan in 2006. The government is offering a reward of P500,000 for his capture.
The two student activists remain missing.
Concepcion Empeño said the PNP appeared to have lost its enthusiasm for capturing Palparan, who went into hiding in December after a Bulacan court ordered him and three other soldiers arrested for the kidnapping of Empeño and Cadapan.
“They don’t want to move anymore,” Concepcion Empeño said.
Two of Palparan’s coaccused, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado Jr. and M/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, have surrendered. They are detained at Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio.
The other accused soldier, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, has also gone into hiding.
To pressure Palparan and Hilario into surfacing, Concepcion Empeño suggested that the military stop paying their pensions, salaries and benefits.
“The government should do that until such time that the case is resolved. That will put pressure on them to surface,” she said.
Now that he has admitted difficulty in capturing Palparan, Bartolome should next find out who’s coddling the fugitive general, Karapatan spokesperson and End Impunity convenor Cristina Palabay said.
“This is a healthy excuse to evade the question, which should be looked at by the authorities if they really want to arrest Palparan: Are influential people, including those in the [Armed Forces of the Philippines], harboring or coddling Palparan who they said is one of their own?” Palabay said.
“With the prevalent state of impunity in the country, where the moneyed and powerful are insulated from accountability, it comes as no surprise [that] the protectors and coddlers of Palparan come from the [military] itself,” she added.
Palabay said Malolos Judge Teodora Gonzales’ order denying the motion of Palparan and his coaccused for a new investigation should prod President Aquino and the military into bringing Palparan out of hiding.
The motion sought a new preliminary investigation, the quashing of the arrest warrants and hold departure orders against the accused, and the suspension of court proceedings.
Judge Gonzales said the accused were accorded due process and their rights were respected by the Department of Justice, which investigated and brought the charges against them.
Gonzales set the arraignment of Anotado and Osorio for April 23.
Palabay said the burden of going after human rights violators and criminals lay on President Aquino and the military. They should arrest Palparan and Hilario “lest they be accused of coddling . . . fugitives,” she said.
“While it is so easy for the government to promote torturers of the 43 health workers [like] Col. Cristobal Zaragosa, Lt. Gen. Jorge Segovia and Brig. Gen. Aurelio Baladad, we wonder what is taking the government so long [to arrest] and [prosecute] these rabid rights violators?” Palabay said.
She was referring to the 43 health workers who were arrested by the military in Morong, Rizal, in February 2010 on suspicion of being communist cadres. They were detained for months, until President Aquino ordered them freed just before Christmas in 2010.
