Reward eyed for info on Palparan

‘COWARD’ Major General Jovito Palaparan Jr. has been called a coward by human rights groups.

The government is considering offering a reward for information that may lead to the arrest of retired Major General Jovito Palparan Jr., Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Thursday.

De Lima said she and Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo were closely monitoring the manhunt for Palparan, an official favored by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and tagged by activists as “Berdugo” (Butcher) for his purported role in extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances.

The decision on whether the offer of reward money would be warranted “really depends on the development in the next 48 hours,” De Lima told reporters in an ambush interview.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I am hopeful for a significant positive development in that regard,” she said.

Palparan has been in hiding since Monday, when Judge Teodora Gonzales of Regional Trial Court Branch 14 in Malolos, Bulacan province, issued separate arrest warrants for him and three coaccused for the abduction of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in June 2006.

Hours earlier, Palparan was barred from boarding a Singapore-bound plane at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Pampanga on De Lima’s orders.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has alerted all its personnel in airports and seaports to be on the lookout for Palparan, who is also a former party-list lawmaker.

The BI intelligence chief and concurrent spokesperson, Ma. Antonette Mangrobang, said the bureau on Thursday received from the court the hold-departure order on Palparan et al.

“He can no longer leave in the absence of an allow-departure order or an order from the court lifting the hold-departure order. He won’t be allowed to depart,” Mangrobang told reporters.

She said Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David had issued a directive informing all immigration offices about the hold-departure order.

Facebook

In the City of San Fernando, the  National Bureau of Investigation team tracking Palparan is thinking creatively after the search proved fruitless on its second day.

The NBI Central Luzon director, Ricardo Diaz, said he posted a message to Palparan on the latter’s Facebook page, hoping to draw the fugitive out of hiding or to coax his 4,660 Facebook “friends” to help negotiate a peaceful surrender.

“I sent him a message offering to open negotiations to prevent untoward incidents,” Diaz said. “In the spirit of Christmas, I told him we could negotiate the how and when of his surfacing.”

Palparan used to contact the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Pampanga after the Department of Justice (DOJ) approved the filing of kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges against him, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio and M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario. But Palparan has not been accessible for the last two days.

Anotado and Osorio are now in police custody; Hilario is at large.

Diaz said he had not uploaded a copy of the arrest warrants on Palparan et al. because “[it] would not have any legal bearing.”

“[An arrest warrant] should be personally served, but I’m using Facebook to send him a message… By the way, our rules on criminal procedure were issued before Facebook [was invented]. Sana we can arrest him via Skype,” Diaz said.

He said Palparan’s last Facebook posting was on December 7.

The NBI waited for a response until after noon Thursday, but it did not receive a reply from Palparan.

Diaz also urged reporters to help persuade Palparan to surface.

“Perhaps you can call or text him [to ask] if we can negotiate. Otherwise, tracker teams will surely catch up with him one of these days. What he is doing [by hiding] is different from what [he told reporters] in his interviews—that he would not resist the authorities who would serve the warrant. He is obviously hiding,” Diaz later said by text message.

Positive results soon

President Benigno Aquino III aired the assurance that Palparan would soon fall into the hands of authorities.

“Let me not state a specific time frame, but you will see positive results shortly,” the President said after welcoming hundreds of overseas Filipino workers returning home for the holidays at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City.

He said the government had a good track record in resolving “sensational issues with regards to peace and order.”

“Given enough time, and perhaps very soon, you will see positive results,” he added.

The President’s spokesperson, Edwin Lacierda, said that the intelligence community was looking at possible areas where Palparan would take refuge, and that Malacañang was optimistic he would be “apprehended.”

“We are still hopeful that he will decide to surrender, and it will make life easier for all of us,” Lacierda told reporters.

He said Palparan could not have left the country because all exits were secured and being monitored by authorities.

Lacierda also appealed to the public to alert authorities on any “valid sighting” of Palparan.

He warned those who would attempt to aid Palparan in hiding from authorities that they could be haled to court for being “an accessory to the crime.”

He also said the government was treating Palparan as “a common criminal.”

‘Special treatment’

But political prisoners Alan Jazmines, Eduardo Sarmiento and Eduardo Serrano, who are being held at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame in Quezon City, said Palparan’s coaccused, Anotado and Osorio, were being given “special treatment” by police.

In a statement, Jazmines, Sarmiento and Serrano welcomed the issuance of arrest warrants on Palparan et al.

“We hope that Palparan himself would soon be arrested, detained, tried, found guilty and punished for crimes against humanity—extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, illegal detention and other fascist terrorism and human rights violations against political activists, suspected rebels and even innocent folks,” the political prisoners said.

However, they said, “we protest the special treatment being given to Palparan’s accomplices, who were brought [Wednesday] night into detention here at the PNP Custodial Center.”

They said Anotado and Osorio had been put in a separate detention area, “where they are given special privileges much above the overly restrictive prison conditions and restrictions imposed on us political prisoners.”

Own judgment

De Lima denied Palparan’s remark on Monday that she had arbitrarily ordered the filing of kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges against him and his coaccused.

She said that as in other criminal complaints filed in the DOJ, the concerned prosecutors freely made a recommendation after conducting a preliminary investigation.

“[Palparan’s case] was assigned to a panel. I have nothing to do with [it]. I did not participate in [it]. Neither did I interfere in [its] work,” De Lima said. “I just come in when the panel has a resolution already. I don’t dictate to the DOJ panels or impose on them.”

State prosecutors “exercise their own independent thinking and judgment when they evaluate a particular case,” De Lima said.

She added: “Everyone can expect a fair trial even if [they are involved] in high-profile cases, or even if they are members of the former administration, including the former President.” With reports from Jerome Aning and Christine O. Avendaño in Manila