12 years later
Manila, 17 September—It may have taken all of 12 years, but finally justice has caught up with former Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, who was sentenced today to life imprisonment for the 2006 kidnapping and illegal detention of UP students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.
Reports said that Palparan cursed Malolos RTC Judge Alexander Tamayo as the sentence was being read. I suppose the four years he spent in detention did nothing to mellow the military man once tagged “The Butcher” during his heydays.
Palparan was arrested in 2014 after three years of hiding. A Malolos court issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the twin kidnappings in 2011. It’s a kind of sickening thing to remember that he was once in Congress as a partylist representative for Bantay party-list, and even had the gall to run for Senator in 2016, during which he lost.
One remembers with a chill that his once strongest patron, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who repeatedly promoted him and praised him for his counter-insurgency campaign during her term, is now back in relative power as House Speaker.
To add an even more sinister layer to that, the full name of his Bantay party-list is The True Marcos Loyalist (For God Country and People). He truly is the perfect mix of all things dark and evil.
As with all things in this godforsaken administration, we watch with eyes wide-open for possible machinations. With Palparan hating on Duterte and vice-versa, if the tune suddenly sounds different, then some other Pied Piper must be playing.
Readings
The full text of the Malolos RTC’s conviction.
A 2015 Whatever Happened To… that we did to mark the ninth anniversary of the abductions.
A PDF of the Melo Commission report finding Palparan accountable for the killings of activists during his time.