Retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. AP FILE PHOTO
CITY OF MALOLOS—Taking the witness stand for the first time on Thursday in the continuation of his trial for the 2006 kidnapping and illegal detention of two missing University of the Philippines (UP) students, retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan said he did not order their abduction.
“The parents of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño [the missing UP students] are looking for them… I pity them,” he told the Bulacan Regional Trial Court (RTC) hearing his case.
Palparan began his testimony by denouncing the charges against him as a fabrication that, he said, was concocted by “the enemy,” referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), to ruin “my reputation” because of his “aggressive stance against insurgency.”
Enemy of the state
Palparan, the former commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division (ID) based in Nueva Ecija province, described the CPP as “the declared enemy of the state” that has been using “the Karapatan [human rights group] to put me down.”
But he clarified that groups like Karapatan were not necessarily illegal like the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the CPP.
“The front organizations [of communist rebels] are… not NPA members themselves. They are not armed and they are not illegal,” he said when the court asked how he differentiated the NPA from activist groups.
Palparan asked Judge Alexander Tamayo of the Bulacan RTC Branch 15 to grant him bail, saying there was no evidence linking him to the abduction of Cadapan and Empeño in June 2006.
He also denied knowing one of his co-accused, S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, who, he said, “was never assigned to the 7th ID command.” Osorio could not have acted under his instructions to detain the missing students, Palparan said.
Osorio has been detained at the Army Custodial Center in Fort Bonifacio, along with Palparan and Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado. The fourth accused, M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, remains at large.
The former major general and the three soldiers are facing trial for complaints filed by Erlinda Cadapan, mother of Sherlyn, and Concepcion Empeño, mother of Karen.
At the end of Palparan’s testimony, Tamayo announced that the retired general’s petition for bail had been submitted for resolution, after his lawyer, Narzal Mallares, informed him that he was no longer presenting a second witness.
Students, not rebels
Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera challenged Palparan’s assertions during cross-examination, but the former general said, “I am not just relying on denials and I can produce witnesses to support my assertions.”
Outside the court room, lawyer Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, said Cadapan and Empeño were conducting research when they were abducted, and were not militant students.
In his testimony, Palparan also denied speaking with Raymond Manalo, the principal witness of the prosecution, while the latter was detained along with his brother in a military camp in Bulacan in May 2006, a month before the two UP students were abducted.
Palparan said he first met Manalo during a hearing conducted by the Commission on Human Rights in 2009.
He also denied meeting Manalo at a basketball court in San Miguel. “I will not do that… I will not meet anyone… especially in a suspected rebel-infested town. I am an [Army] commander. There are other men who could do that,” Palparan told the court.