Mom says she doesn’t want Palparan money

CITY OF MALOLOS—The mother of a missing university student told the court on Monday that she did not want a single centavo from retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., who is standing trial for the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of her daughter and another student.

“No amount of money, even millions of pesos, can pay for my daughter’s life. I went to court so I can get her back alive and healthy,” Erlinda Cadapan said in Filipino.

Palparan, former commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, is undergoing trial with coaccused, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado and S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio. A fourth accused, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, has yet to be arrested.

Cadapan said her mushroom-growing business suffered losses in her search for Sherlyn, a student at the University of the Philippines. “I could be making more money for our family if Sherlyn is helping me in our mushroom production,” she said.

Sherlyn and UP student Karen Empeño have been missing since June 26, 2006, after they were abducted by suspected government soldiers in Hagonoy town in Bulacan province.

Last week, Empeño’s mother, Concepcion, testified for the prosecution, raising a similar point as Cadapan’s after she was asked to quantify the civil damages to which her family is entitled from Palparan.

Cadapan said she had been looking for her daughter for four months in 2006 in every town in Bulacan. She showed the court photographs indicating that she had spent time searching at the Philippine Army’s 24th Infantry Battalion headquarters in Limay, Bataan province.

She said Sherlyn was a UP student when she went missing in 2006, though her daughter’s last record of enrollment was in 2001.

“Sherlyn stopped schooling but she was in the process of resuming her studies when she disappeared. She can’t be referred to as a former UP student because she was about to enroll. She was not dismissed by UP, so she was a student,” she told the court.

During cross-examination, the camp of Palparan tried to discredit Cadapan’s account, saying she only relied on the accounts of other people supposedly abducted by soldiers.