Reckoning

The Department of Justice has recommended the filing of a kidnapping case against retired general and former congressman Jovito Palparan and several military officers in connection with the abduction in 2006 of college students suspected of being members of the communist New People’s Army. The Melo Commission, headed by retired associate justice Jose Melo, had recommended in 2007 the filing of similar charges against Palparan by virtue of command responsibility since he was the head of the Army battalion allegedly responsible for the abductions. But the recommendation was not adopted by the former administration. Palparan was allowed to retire without a hitch and he even got the administration’s blessing to run as a party-list representative in 2007. He won, but he wasn’t reelected in 2010. Now the day of reckoning may have come.

Palparan’s record as a military officer speaks for itself. Wherever he went—from Mindoro to Samar and Central Luzon—he left a trail of alleged disappearances and human rights violations. He had been called the “Butcher of Mindoro” and the “Executioner of Samar.” During his Samar stint, he was accused of 500 cases of torture, harassment, abduction, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Although it could be said that his notoriety has been promoted by his enemies from the communist movement against which he waged a bitter war, he himself, by his own remarks, gave credence to the underhanded tactics he is alleged to have used in order to win the war. When he became commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division in 2005, he said the military’s use of force was the most effective way of fighting insurgents and their supporters in the country. “This is the essence of the coercive power of the state. Under this, we have the authority to terrorize the bad elements of society,” he said.

Part of the public impression that he would do everything to prosecute the war and defeat the insurgency was Palparan’s belief that it could be won in a short period of time since the AFP had the military edge and was merely losing the propaganda war with rebels. Of course, his belief merely reflected the wishful thinking of the previous Arroyo administration that it could lick the insurgency in just two years. Because the projection wasn’t realistic, officers in the field tried to meet the deadline with mixed results. In the case of Palparan, his remarks expressing belief that the insurgency would soon be defeated gave the impression he would do everything, by means legal or foul, to prove his point. In an interview with the Agence France Presse in 2006, he said the public should accept the fact that there would be “collateral damage.” Moreover, Palparan during his stint in Central Luzon would occupy barangay health centers and make them military outposts.

In retirement, Palparan’s conduct has also been questionable. In 2008, he seized a seaport involved in a land dispute, using soldiers and police ostensibly without authorization from their commanders. The accusation was made by Zambales Gov. Amor Deloso. “We were fooled by Palparan,” said one soldier who joined in the takeover of the facility in Masinloc, Zambales. Deloso said that a breakdown in the police and military chain of command allowed Palparan to take over the port owned by Consolidated Mining Inc. The State Investment Trust Inc., which employs the 24 Hours Security Corp. where Palparan works as a consultant, was claiming a portion of the 20-hectare port. The soldiers had no nameplates.

But it wasn’t the first time that Palparan used his AFP connections for private ends. Earlier, the Ore Asia Mining and Development Corp. filed charges of robbery, grave coercion and serious illegal detention against Palparan and 16 others after they allegedly took over the firm’s mine site in Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan. In reacting to the charges, Palparan practically implicated himself. “We only secured the area. I only helped my friend, lawyer Roy Villasol, who has a claim (to) the site,” he said.

In active service or in retirement, Palparan has acquired notoriety for short-cutting or even subverting rules, then bragging about it. If he has easily scuttled the conventions while playing a security “consultant” to highly competitive mining interests, then something must have emboldened him to do so. Alas, it appears he would use his military connections, even hoodwink the rank and file into joining him in a private security operation, in order for him to deliver the goods. Has he always bent the rules to suit his whims? Has he always undercut standards with impunity? Who made the monster that is Palparan?