Palparan: I can’t trust military leadership to protect my rights

MANILA, Philippines—Retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, who was arrested last week after almost four years as a fugitive, has apparently lost faith in the present leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, according to a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) official who spoke to Palparan right after his arrest.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. FILE PHOTO

“I cannot trust the (present) set of officials to protect my rights because they are also thinking of their careers,” Palparan is said to have told the official who asked not to be identified for lack of authority to speak to the media.

Palparan, however, declined to name the officers in whom he claimed to have lost confidence, the source said.

The source, who said he knew Palparan years ago when he was a young man, said the retired general was disappointed at how his case was being handled by the military after the end of the administration of his alleged patron, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

In an interview at NBI headquarters after his arrest last Tuesday, Palparan told the Inquirer he never received support from the AFP and denied using one of the houses in Camp Aguinaldo as his hideout.

“I would never involve the AFP and never entered the camp after I went into hiding,” he said.

Palparan said he “did not feel betrayed and abandoned by his organization.”

He said that former supporters and inactive colleagues helped him when he went into hiding to avoid arrest after a Bulacan court ordered that he be apprehended in 2011 following his indictment in connection with the 2006 disappearance of University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

The source also said that Palparan had relatives in Mindanao who were members of the communist New People’s Army.

With labor organizer

The source said that a certain Ladao who was found in the house when Palparan was arrested was one of the labor organizers who caused the closure of a bottling factory and forced it to transfer to another city.

“Palparan has plenty of NPA relatives and even occasionally saw them during fiestas,” the source added.

Meanwhile, assistant state prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera, who heads the prosecution panel, said his team was ready to begin the trial of Palparan who is scheduled to be arraigned on charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention on Monday in the Malolos Regional Trial Court.

The panel last saw Palparan when he appeared at the preliminary hearings in 2011.

Navera said the team would be presenting eyewitnesses but declined to discuss details because of the sub judice rule.

The court proceedings against Palparan will begin after the prosecution finishes presenting its evidence against Palparan’s coaccused—Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado and Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio—who surrendered in December 2011. A third coaccused, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, remains at large.

Palparan is temporarily detained at an NBI facility after his arrest by military and NBI agents in Sta. Mesa last Tuesday. He had asked to be held in Manila instead of his court-ordered detention at the Bulacan Provincial Jail, saying there were threats to his life from an NPA “liquidation squad.”

The NBI has said it would comply with the court’s order to transfer Palparan to the Bulacan jail despite the “very high, very valid” threats, and would enlist the help of the police and military to ensure the detainee’s security.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the authorities would make sure to secure Palparan while he is in detention because if anything were to happen to him, it would be “another big blow” to the administration.

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