Malacañang urges General Palparan to surrender as rebels join manhunt

Now that communist rebels have joined the manhunt for him, retired Army general Jovito Palparan’s best option is to surrender to authorities to ensure his own safety, a Malacañang official said on Tuesday.

“Considering what the other alternatives are in light of recent events, yes, to surrender will be his best option,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte at a press briefing.

She stressed that the government has assured Palparan that his rights will be protected.

In a Feb. 5 statement, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said it authorized all units of its armed wing, the New People’s Army,  to take Palparan “into custody and surrender him to the duly-constituted revolutionary authorities.”

Palparan has been in hiding since last December after a court in Malolos, Bulacan issued a warrant of arrest against him and several others for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.

Valte admitted that the CPP’s participation in the manhunt will complicate the government’s effort to arrest Palparan. “That would provide an unnecessary complication because only law enforcement components of the state are authorized to conduct the manhunt.”

“The manhunt is ought to be purely a law enforcement matter. It should be the law enforcement components of the state that should be—that has the authority to undertake the manhunt and as such should be left to it,” she added.

In January, the government doubled to P1 million the reward money being offered for the arrest of Palparan.

Apart from Palparan, also accused with two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention were Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado Jr., S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, and M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario.

Anotado and Osorio have already surrendered earlier while Hilario, Palparan’s supposed “sidekick,” remain at large.

Palparan has been religiously attending the Department of Justice’s preliminary investigation in the past but has since gone missing after the charges were filed before a Malolos, Bulacan court.

The subject of a hold departure order, Palparan earlier tried slipping out of the country for Singapore but was stopped at the airport by immigration officials. – Amita O. Legaspi/KBK, GMA News

Malacañang urges public to help find General Palparan

By RG Cruz, ABS-CBN News
Malacañang on Monday urged the public to help authorities bring retired Major General Jovito Palparan to justice.

“It will be easier if the public helps. We have a limited number, we have limited manpower who are employed in search for the obviously missing former general Palparan. It would help if public would give us info if there are sightings of the former general,” Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

Valte said the military has already made assurances they will not help their former colleague.

Palparan, who has a P1-million bounty on his head, is wanted for the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of University of the Philippines (UP) student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno in June 2006.

Cadapan, a senior Bachelor of Sport Science student, and Empeno, a senior BA Sociology student, were forcibly taken by armed men wearing bonnets on June 26, 2006 in Barangay San Miguel, Hagonoy, Bulacan.

They remain missing up to now.

Kin of missing UP students wants Palparan’s co-accused moved to regular jail

MANILA, Philippines—Mothers of missing University of the Philippines students have asked the Malolos City Regional Trial Court to bring back the custody of surrendered soldiers who are co-accused of retired General Jovito Palparan and put them to a regular jail.

“We ask the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 14 to withdraw its grant to place the Lt. Col. Anotado and S/Sgt. Osorio in military custody. We believe that they should be put in a regular detention facility without any special treatment,” Linda Cadapan and Connie Empeño, mothers of Sherlyn and Karen respectively, said today.

Osorio and Anotado surrendered to the authorities on Dec. 21, 2011 after a warrant of arrest against was issued.  Last Dec. 23, they were moved to the military custody by grounds of threat to their security.

Anotado, Osorio, along with Palparan are facing charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention for the abduction of still missing UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan. (INQ.NET)

Bulacan court orders Palparan’s arrest – DOJ

MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News December 20, 2011

A Bulacan court has issued an arrest warrant against retired Army general Jovito Palparan, who is charged for the disappearance of two student activists in 2006.

Prosecutor General Claro Arellano told GMA News Online that a regional trial court in Malolos issued the arrest warrant on Monday afternoon.

Arellano said they have already requested the Malolos RTC to furnish the Department of Justice a copy of the arrest warrant via facsimile.

“According to Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, they will immediately implement the arrest warrant,” Arellano said.

Arellano said apart from an arrest warrant, the DOJ has also asked the court to issue an order placing Palparan and the three others on the immigration watchlist.

“Pero hindi pa nare-resolve ang request namin na iyon,” Arellano said.

On Tuesday, Palparan tried to leave the country for Singapore via a Seair flight but was barred from doing so by the Bureau of Immigration.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima later explained that while the watch list order earlier issued against him has already expired, it has yet to be officially lifted.

In a resolution dated December 15, the panel of prosecutors investigating the incident found “probable cause” to charge Palparan, Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Master Sergeant Rizal Hilario, and Staff Sergeant Edgardo Osorio with two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention in connection with the abduction of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.

Soon after the Arroyo administration heaped praise on Palparan for his counterinsurgency campaigns from 2001 to 2006, the report of the independent Melo Commission declared that, “there is certainly evidence pointing the finger of suspicion at some elements and personalities in the armed forces, in particular General Palparan, as responsible for an undetermined number of killings, by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings.”

After Palparan’s retirement from the military in 2006, he won a seat in Congress through Bantay, an anti-communist party list group he heads. Just before he retired, then-President Gloria Arroyo publicly commended him during her State of the Nation address and asked him to stand to acknowledge the crowd’s ovation.

In the 2010 elections, he sought a Senate seat but failed to land in the Magic 12. – KG, GMA News

Palparan aide denies link to disappearance of 2 UP students

STAFF Sergeant Edgardo Osorio, security aide to retired Major General Jovito Palparan, denied the accusations implicating him in the abduction and disappearance of two University of the Philippines student activists in 2006.

In a three-page counter-affidavit he personally submitted to a Justice Department panel of prosecutors, Osorio said he was only assigned as security aide to retired Major General Palparan at a DOJ hearing in July.

“I was never instructed nor under the direct command and control of [Palparan] in any given time. Worth noting, I met [Palparan] only when I was detailed to secure his safety at the DOJ hearing on 19 July 2011,” said Osorio.

Palparan is the key suspect in the abductions of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in June 2006.

Osorio added he was never assigned to the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion, the unit that allegedly carried out the abductions.

“I have no participation in the alleged rape, serious physical serious injuries, arbitrary detention, maltreatment of prisoners, grave threats, grave coercion, and violation of Republic Act No. 7438 [An Act Defining the Rights of Persons Arrested, Detained, or Under Custodial Investigation] on Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño,” said Osorio.

“My military assignments will ultimately show that I have no participation in the alleged disappearances of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno,” he added.

He noted that from May to July 2006, he was assigned to the Army Personnel Management Center based in Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City. Cadapan and Empeño had been missing since June 2006.

Osorio added that he has never met Cadapan and Empeño throughout his military career and that he he has no “direct or indirect knowledge whatsoever on their alleged disappearnces.”

Osorio also turned the tables on the complainants’ witnesses, Alberto Ramirez and Wilfredo Ramos, whom he accused of engaging in a “fishing expedition in their malicious imputation that I was one of the persons involved in the incident.”