Not man enough

Fugitive retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan was adding insult to injury when he made his lawyer, Jesus Santos, write the National Bureau of Investigation to say that University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño were still alive. The students have been missing since 2006 and Palparan, who has gone into hiding rather than face the kidnapping case filed against him by the Department of Justice, is trifling with the emotions of the grieving parents who have been looking for them. The parents, through their lawyer Edre Olalia, have dared Palparan to face them. He should be man enough to accept the challenge.

Obviously, Palparan is indulging in one of the psywar tactics typical of total-war strategy. His tack should reveal his cold-bloodedness as well as his contempt for the law. Olalia said Palparan should “stop putting [his own] lawyers on the spot… [by making them] trifle with the emotions of suffering mothers [when they issue] recklessly bare claims that their young and abused daughters are still alive.” If the victims are still alive, then Palparan will have no cause for running from the law; he has nothing to be afraid of. But he’s gone into hiding exactly because he had broken the law. In a non sequitur in fact, he has said through his lawyer that he would “try [his] best not to surrender since the filing of the cases against [him] was done illegally.” In reply, Olalia has taunted him: “Come out of your putrid sewage hole and see the light. Join your avid fan, former President GMA (Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) in jail. Stop putting your attorneys on the spot [to] take the fall for you.”

Since going into hiding, Palparan has portrayed himself the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Some flag officers have even sided with him and said he should be considered innocent until proven guilty. But that’s exactly what the filing of the charges against him is supposed to achieve—to give him his day in court, so that he can confront his accusers, and vigorously defend himself. But Palparan has a history of scorning the law. As commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division in 2005, he said he would prosecute the war against the insurgents without consideration for human rights. “This is the essence of the coercive power of the state,” he declared. “Under this, we have the authority to terrorize the bad elements of society.” The following year, he told Agence France Presse that the public should accept the fact there would be “collateral damage.”

His fellow officers have vouched for Palparan’s professionalism as a soldier. But in active service or in retirement, he has shown contempt for the law he has vowed to defend and uphold as an officer and a gentleman. In 2008, he seized a seaport involved in a land dispute in Masinloc, Zambales, using soldiers and police without authorization from their commanders. Zambales Gov. Amor 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. It turned out that State Investment Trust Inc., which employed the 24 Hours Security Corp. where Palparan worked as a consultant, was claiming a portion of the 20-hectare port. Even earlier, 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 again betrayed his derisive regard for the law and professional comportment in the name of friendship and personal interest. “We only secured the area,” he said. “I only helped my friend, lawyer Roy Villasol, who has a claim on the site.”

Palparan is evincing the same disparagement of the law when he claims he’s a victim of injustice and that the daughters of his accusers are still alive. He should stop playing games with the law and the emotions of the parents of the missing students. At the least, the code of soldiering demands that he should face the music and come clean on the charges against him. But considering his underhanded ways, it’s remote he will do the bidding of the grieving mothers. To be sure, he’s not man enough to face them.