Probe Palparan interview, House urged

Former Army  Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — The Bayan Muna party-list group urged the House of Representatives to look into last week’s media interview of former Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, dubbed the “Butcher” for his bloody campaign against communist rebels, who is an inmate at New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa.

Representatives Eufemia Cullamat, Carlos Zarate, and Ferdinand Gaite filed on Monday a resolution asking the House Committee on Human Rights to denounce and investigate why Palparan was allowed to be interviewed while in prison.

The former military general and ex-Bantay party list representative was convicted of kidnapping and serious illegal detention in connection with the 2006 disappearance of University of the Philippines (UP) students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in Bulacan.

2 UP students abducted

The UP students were in Hagonoy, Bulacan, for a school project when they were abducted and held by the military on suspicion they were communist rebels.

Palparan and his men were implicated in their disappearance in 2011. The former Army officer went into hiding but was captured in 2014.

Palparan and his two co-accused were found guilty of kidnapping and serious illegal detention of Cadapan and Empeño and sentenced to 40 years in prison by the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 15 by Judge Alexander Tamayo in 2018.

Palparan appeared in a Sonshine Media Network International program, which aired the “exclusive interview” on March 30.

The lawmakers maintained that the interview was conducted “without the knowledge and permission from the Department of Justice (DOJ).”

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