Court asked to overturn acquittal of Palparan

Farmer Raymond Manalo filed a motion for reconsideration on Monday before a Malolos court seeking to overturn the acquittal of former Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr. and his other co-accused on charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with serious physical injuries.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said it “boggled [her] mind” how the testimony of Manalo once hailed as “clear, consistent and convincing” by the Supreme Court was “trashed” by the Bulacan Regional Trial Court (RTC).

Manalo appealed to the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 19 to reconsider the evidence of the prosecution which, he said, were “disregarded, misread, taken out of context, or held to be inferior as against the self-serving claims of a ‘two-star general’ who had been convicted, on the basis of the same evidence from the same eyewitnesses, for the same crime involving his other [still missing] victims.”

University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño were kidnapped by Palparan and his men in June 2006. The two have been missing for 17 years.

Manalo, who was also abducted by the military that same year, testified to seeing both women being tortured and sexually molested while in detention. His testimony had been key to Palparan’s conviction in 2018.

Kidnapping, illegal detention

However, the Malolos RTC earlier this month acquitted Palparan for the 2006 kidnapping and serious illegal detention with physical injuries of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo.

Besides Palparan, Presiding Judge Francisco Felizmenio of Malolos RTC Branch 19 also acquitted Master Sgt. Rizal Hilario and five members of the military auxiliary force called Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit, who happened to be brothers Michael, Marcelo, Jose, Maximo and Roman dela Cruz.

Manalo’s lawyer Julian Oliva Jr. said Felizmenio had ruled that the Manalo brothers failed to clearly identify the men who abducted them from their farm in San Idelfonso, Bulacan, in February 2006.

“We are hoping for the best,” Palabay said, referring to the motion for reconsideration filed by Manalo.

‘Injustice’

“But if the judge won’t grant the Manalo brothers’ motion for reconsideration, it will be a reaffirmation of the injustice that was inflicted on the Manalos and the other victims of Palparan’s bloody military career,” she said.

Palabay added that Karapatan had documented 71 victims of extrajudicial killings during Palparan’s stint in Mindoro.

She said these include human-rights activist Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy. She added there were also 14 victims of frustrated killing and five incidents of massacre.

When he served as the 24th Infantry Battalion chief in Central Luzon, Palabay said Palparan was implicated in the killing of Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, also known as the Aglipayan Church, in Tarlac.

“And as 8th ID chief in Eastern Visayas, he likewise orchestrated the extrajudicial killings weeks apart of human rights lawyer Felidito Dacut and Katungod-Sinirangan Bisayas chair Rev. Edison Lapuz in Leyte,” she added. INQ