Bulacan judge hailed for junking Palparan motion

MANILA, Philippines—Private prosecutors on Friday cheered a Bulacan judge’s dismissal of a motion by the fugitive Jovito Palparan and his co-accused to quash warrants for their arrest in connection with the disappearance of two University of the Philippines students.

“We welcome the court’s order as it basically sustains our position all along and is in accord with the law and jurisprudence,”  Edre Olalia, one of the private prosecutors from the National Union of People’s Lawyers, said in a text message. “It only further proves that Palparan et al. are just obstructing and frustrating justice at all costs.”

With the judge’s order, the government should step up the manhunt for Palparan and his co-accused M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario over the kidnapping and illegal detention of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño, said Olalia, NUPL secretary general.

“The government must deliver on fugitives pronto and dispel pervading views that it is inutile and even held by the military at the nose instead of promoting known human rights violators one after the other like those in the torture of the Morong 43,” he said, referring to military officers who held 43 health workers for months in 2010 in Morong, Rizal on suspicion they were communist cadres.

With regard to the judge’s order standing by an earlier ruling to keep Lieutenant Colonel Felipe Anotado and S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio in military custody, Olalia said they would study whether to file a motion for reconsideration.