When you’re brought back to your former “stomping grounds,” placed once again in the company of old friends and colleagues and the environment that nurtured and molded you to full flowering, would you call that incarceration? We think not.
That is effectively what’s been afforded Jovito Palparan, with the Malolos Regional Trial Court’s decision to transfer him from the Bulacan provincial jail to the Philippine Army Custodial Center in Fort Bonifacio, where he will be held while on trial for kidnapping and illegal detention charges.
Could the court have forgotten that the retired major general, the reputed “Butcher” in his heyday, evaded arrest and was a fugitive from the law for years? Doesn’t remanding him to a military camp, like a duck to water, amount to special treatment? Is justice served by rewarding him with a homecoming?