No special treatment for Kapunan, says military

Ret. Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo “Red” Kapunan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The military on Thursday denied retired Lieutenant Colonel Eduardo Kapunan was getting special treatment at Fort Bonifacio where he is detained over the killing of labor leader Rolando Olalia and his driver in 1986.

“In fact the detention center was inspected by the International Committee of the Red Cross [and it] passed the international standards in 2011,” Army spokesman Major Harold Cabunoc told INQUIRER.net.

Kapunan, who surrendered to the Philippine Army on Saturday, is among the accused in the killing of Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay, eight months after the Edsa Revolution in February 1986. Olalia then was the head of the leftwing Kilusang Mayo Uno.

Military officer in Olalia, Alay-ay double murder case surrenders

Kapunan and the other suspects—Oscar Legaspi, Filomeno Maligaya, Cirilo Almario, Jose Bacera, Fernando Casanova, Ricardo Dicon, Gilbert Galicia, Dennis Jabatan, Gene Paris, Freddie Sumagaysay and Edgar Sumido—were all members of the ultra-rightist Reform the Armed Forces Movement.

Lawyer Edre Olalia of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, one of the private prosecutors for Olalia and Alay-ay, objected to Kapunan’s detention at Fort Bonifacio “as he is already a retired officer.”

But Cabunoc  said that Kapunan’s cell at the Army’s Custodial Management Unit only has the basic necessities, such as electric fan, bed, toilet and table.

He  declined though to give a photograph of Kapunan inside his detention center, saying the suspect has been receiving serious security threats prior to his surrender as indicated in his affidavit.

Cabunoc said the court has yet to issue an order where to detain Kapunan, a retired colonel of the Philippine Air Force and a member of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1981.