The arrest of retired general Jovito Palparan will not end impunity in the country and neither will it improve the human rights situation, as long as counterinsurgency programs are used to quell people’s dissent instead of addressing the root causes of the armed conflict. The machinery in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that perpetuates Palparan’s brand of human rights violations against the Filipino people is very much active in Oplan Bayanihan.
AFP generals and commanders with the same anticommunist mindset as Palparan’s are in key positions and are calling the shots. They lauded Palparan’s campaign of terror against so-called rebels—a campaign that actually victimized unarmed civilians.
Maj. Gen. Eduardo Año, chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP, who boasts of Palparan’s arrest, is accused of numerous human rights violations, such as the disappearance of agriculturist Jonas Burgos. Año continued Palparan’s reign of terror in Central Luzon. President Aquino glorifies Palparan protégés like Año by promoting them to higher positions in the AFP, the same way Gloria Arroyo extolled Palparan. Año is the incoming commander of the 10th Infantry “Agila” Division in Davao region where people, more particularly those in Compostella Valley, are already facing
terror due to intense counterinsurgency operations.
Palparan’s pal, Maj. Gen. Ricardo Visaya, now the commander of the 4th ID in Northern Mindanao, has been linked to gross human rights violations in Hacienda Luisita, including the 2004 massacre that killed farm workers; and elements of the 69th IB-PA, then headed by Visaya, were reportedly involved in the abduction and torture of farmers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo on Feb. 14, 2006.
And there is the case of University of the Philippines graduates Guiller Cadano and Gerald Salonga, who were abducted by the police and military, like the Morong 43 health workers who were jailed during the Arroyo regime. The Cadano-Salonga case shows that abduction and the filing of trumped-up charges by the AFP as “standard practices” continue. Only last July 27, hooded men abducted Benjie Gomez who later turned up in a jail, facing trumped-up murder charges. Gomez is a staffmember of Dinteg (Cordillera Indigenous People’s Legal Center) for its project “Enhancing the Capacity of Indigenous Peoples on Human Rights-Based Approach to Development,” a project funded by the European Union.
Also, extrajudicial killings continue. On Aug. 6, a week before Palparan was arrested, peasant organizer Gil Hernandez was shot dead in Candelaria, Quezon province by a
motorcycle-riding man.
As of June 30, 2014, Karapatan has documented 204 extrajudicial killings, 21 disappearances, 99 cases of torture, 664 illegal arrests and detention, and the forced evacuation of 39,800 people—under the Aquino administration.
Human rights violations will not stop with the arrest of Palparan for there are other
Palparans in the AFP.
—CRISTINA PALABAY,
secretary general, Karapatan,
2/F Erythrina Building,
1 Maaralin cor. Matatag Sts.,
Central District, Quezon City
karapatan@karapatan.org