Kin of missing students slam fugitive general

Jovito Palparan Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – A lawyer for the families of two missing University of the Philippines activists on Saturday assailed the claim of fugitive retired Major General Jovito Palparan that he was the victim in the abduction case that has prompted him to run from the law.

“General Palparan has the gall and temerity to claim that the charges against him were done illegally. That is farthest from the truth. He is turning things upside down,” said lawyer Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.

“It’s the height of hypocrisy to wrongly claim he is the victim when he is known to have routinely and cavalierly deprived many, killed summarily, disappeared and tortured their basic rights as human beings,” he said in a statement sent by text message to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Olalia was reacting to a statement Palparan had issued through his lawyer, Jesus Santos, in which the fugitive vowed not to surrender and denied he was under the protection of retired generals and members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Palparan and three other soldiers face kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges in the Bulacan regional trial court (RTC) in connection with the 2006 disappearance of students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.

“The mothers of the two UP students went by the book and are enduring the tedious and even frustrating process to hold him accountable. His credibility is so low that his every word is suspect,” Olalia said of Palparan.

He challenged the retired general to “come out of your putrid sewage hole and see the light” and “join your avid fan GMA [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] in jail,” an allusion to charges that Palparan’s alleged human rights atrocities had the stamp of approval of the previous administration.

“Stop putting your attorneys on the spot and to take the fall for you even as they trifle with the emotions of the suffering mothers by recklessly springing bare claims their young and abused daughters are still alive,” Olalia said.

Along with retired Master Sergeant Rizal Hilario, Lieutenant Colonel Felipe Anotado and Staff Sergeant Edgardo Osorio, Palparan is charged with kidnapping and detaining Cadapan and Empeño, who disappeared in Hagonoy, Bulacan province in 2006.

Anotado and Osorio surrendered to authorities a day after the Malolos court issued a warrant for their arrest while Palparan and Hilario went into hiding.