Gov’t, NPA hunt for Palparan

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines–A fugitive from the law for six days now, retired Major General Jovito Palparan finds himself besieged on many fronts.

The National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police are after Palparan to make him and three soldiers stand trial for the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of two University of the Philippines students in Hagonoy, Bulacan, in 2006.

But as early as September 2006 when he retired, the New People’s Army also labeled him as a “dead man walking,” for thousands of activists and masses killed, abducted or hurt during in his tour of duty.

Now, even the Armed Forces of the Philippines wants itself counted among the groups seeking out the retired military officer.

“We will try our very best to help arrest him in support of the PNP,”  AFP chief of staff, Lieutenant General Jessie Dellosa, said in a telephone interview from Davao City on Friday.

That was the day Palparan was supposed to have yielded to the authorities, due to a December 19 arrest warrant issued by a Bulacan judge in connection with the kidnapping of UP students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in June 2006.

Asked to confirm if the AFP was helping track down Palparan, Dellosa said: “Since he is a fugitive, he can be arrested. We can assist the PNP through the joint peace and security coordinating center.”

But he gave no details as to how the AFP intended to help the PNP. Dellosa said what the AFP has done so far was to comply with the request of the Department of Justice to be on the lookout for the fugitive general and to prevent him from leaving the country.

“So far, we’ve published lookout bulletins,” the AFP chief said.

The AFP provost marshal helped arrest Lieutenant Colonel Felipe Anotado and S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, who are both active in the service. The two soldiers were implicated in the UP students’ kidnapping.

On Tuesday, the two soldiers were remanded to the custody of the police in Camp Crame.

A third co-accused, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, remains at large like Palparan. Hilario is said to be a right-hand man of Palparan. He used several aliases, according to former Bulacan Governor Josefina de la Cruz in an interview after five residents of San Jose del Monte City went missing in 2005.

On Saturday, the national fisherfolk alliance, Pamalakaya, urged President Benigno Aquino to set a deadline for the arrest of Palparan.

Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chair, said relatives of Palparan’s alleged victims have become impatient because of the “slow action” by the NBI and PNP in arresting Palparan.

“Mr. Palparan is not only a certified fugitive from justice. He is armed and dangerous and the ex-Army major general is known for his business of killing political activists and innocent people in the name of national security doctrine and anti-communist advocacy. The  public is not safe with this heartless and ruthless criminal on the loose,” Hicap said in a statement.

He said the government has the resources to capture Palparan in less than a week. He echoed a common suspicion shared by many groups that Palparan’s military backers were “probably coddling him at this very moment.”

The human rights group Karapatan said at least 136 of 212 incidents of human rights violations in Central Luzon from February 2001 to August 2006 occurred during the 11-month stint of Palparan as commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry  Division based in  Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija.

In a report, Karapatan said the rights violations consisted of 71 summary executions, five massacres, 14 frustrated killings and 46 disappearances in all of the region’s seven provinces. The tally includes the case of the two missing UP students.

The report said the atrocities occurred in areas where the military had headquartered or deployed special operations teams.

Palparan retired on September 11, 2006 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 56.

The abductions, however, did not stop.

Jonas Joseph Burgos, for instance, was taken by suspected military agents on April 28, 2007 in Metro Manila. The van used by the suspects bore a license plate belonging to a jeep put by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the custody of the Army’s 56th Infantry Battalion in Bulacan. That  battalion is one of the units under the 7th ID.

In previous interviews, Palparan said he rued the tag  “Butcher,” which he described as “a creation by my enemies, by the enemies of the military.”

“It is not really the Armed Forces that is declaring these [individuals] as enemies but these people declaring us as their enemies. It’s a creation because out of my–or our– activities; they wanted to make a picture [that I am] a brutal criminal and a person who is liable [for] doing illegal things. I know myself. I am performing my job.… Where I am assigned, people are getting better lives,” he said.