MANILA, Philippines—Following Jovito Palparan’s failure to surrender to the authorities as expected on Friday, Commission Human Rights Chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales and human rights lawyer Edre Olalia gave this bit of advice to the National Bureau of Investigation: Don’t ever trust him to keep his word.
“It could probably be a ruse to deflect attention,” Olalia, a member of a team of lawyers for two missing student-activists of the University of the Philippines, said of Palparan’s offer to surrender. “He’s biding his time. He probably has some dirty plans to execute an escape.”
Rosales called the NBI “naïve” and “short-sighted” for relying on the word of the retired Army major general, who is facing charges of kidnapping and illegal detention in connection with the disappearance in 2006 of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.
“That’s naivete and shortsightedness. You don’t rely on the word of someone who knows he’s ready to be arrested and there’s a lot of evidence against him,” she said in a telephone interview.
“They can’t trust him; they should not trust him. His whole performance of duty was a concretization of why people should not trust him. He had no accountability. He took shortcuts to do his job. He violated human rights,’’ she added.
With his network of friends in the Armed Forces, Palparan could always hide and escape, and it would be prudent for the government “to mobilize all its forces to try to get him,’’ Rosales said. “No stone should be left unturned.’’
After apparently sending feelers, Palparan did not show up at the appointed time and place of surrender Thursday morning, NBI Central Luzon Director Ricardo Diaz said.
Palparan and three others are charged with kidnapping and serious illegal detention for the disappearance of Empeño and Cadapan, who were abducted from a home in Hagonoy, Bulacan in June 2006. At the time, Palparan was the commander of the 7th Infantry Division in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija.
They had not been seen by their families since then.
After the Department of Justice recommended the filing of charges against him, Palparan last Monday tried to fly to Singapore through the international airport in Pampanga, but was barred by immigration agents. The next day, a local court issued a warrant for his arrest. He has not been seen since then.
Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers handling the cases of Empeño and Cadapan, said it was difficult to trust Palparan given his “proven track record of being cunning and misleading people and lying through his teeth.’’
“If the surrender feeler is true, why not? But until that happens, the burden is on him to disprove that he can be believed at all,’’ he said on the phone.
“What’s important is for him to turn himself in. He can be armed and dangerous, if he has a connection with the military. He also has a security agency. I hope he doesn’t aggravate things as they already are,” he said.
“He can’t hide forever. He’s doing himself and his family a disservice. For as long as he’s on the run, the whole country is his prison cell. Every nook and cranny, every crevice, every building and car is going to be searched because people know how notorious he is. His face is splashed on the papers. Even the common person would probably recognize him,’’ Olalia added.
“Do they want to spend the holidays first? They have no right. They have denied many victims of their holidays with their families,” Olalia said.
Rosales said the NBI should have kept an eye on Palparan from the time the immigration authorities barred him from leaving the country until the local court issued the warrant for his arrest.
“They should have made sure that he was under surveillance, and within their grasp,” she said. “I feel bad that he’s at large, and we’re an archipelago and that he still has friends within the Armed Forces.’’
Olalia made the same observation.
“From the airport, they should have put him under surveillance. That time he was a potential fugitive from justice. There was an opportunity that was missed. Now they’re scrambling to find him,” Olalia said. “I’m not trying to cast aspersions. I hope the missed opportunity would not be repeated.”