This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com).
Vol. VI, No. 31, Sept.
10-16, 2006
Palparan's Path: Trail of Blood, Child Victims
When he exits the military service this Sept. 11, Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, Jr.
leaves behind a long list of victims of human rights violations in the areas
where he was assigned. Based on his declarations in various media interviews, he
will perhaps even give a hearty laugh should his record be described as a trail
of blood. But his record speaks for itself.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, Jr., commanding officer of the Philippine Army's 7th
Infantry Division based in Ft. Ramon Magsaysay, Laur, Nueva Ecija, turns 56 this
Sept. 11 – reaching the mandatory age of retirement from the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP).
But Palparan, tagged as “butcher” by activist groups and rights watchdogs for
unsolved extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances perpetrated in his
many areas of assignment, was immediately appointed by President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo to the National Security Council (NSC), as deputy for
anti-insurgency operations. At the NSC, Palparan joins its head, National
Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales who, together with Macapagal-Arroyo, has
defended the general's anti-insurgency operations.
Directly attached to the office of the president, the NSC provides intelligence
and national security policy recommendation to the chief executive. Gonzales is
believed to be part of the militarist clique in the Cabinet Oversight Committee
on Internal Security (COC-IS) which endorsed the armed forces’ internal security
operations plan against the underground armed Left and legal activists and
organizations.
With Palparan’s continuing active role in counter-insurgency this time directly
under Macapagal-Arroyo, it is now fitting to take stock of his career as a
military officer.
Based on a news item from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and research
by Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights), Palparan joined
the AFP in 1974, a year after finishing BS Business Administration at the
University of the East (UE).
He would go into graduate studies while in the military, taking up Master in
Management at the Philippine Christian University (PCU) and Master in National
Security Administration at the National Defense College of the Philippines (NDCP).
In 1977 he underwent schooling at the Philippine Army's Infantry Basic Training
Command. Twelve years later, he took an Infantry Advanced Course at the U.S.
Army Infantry School. In 1994 he took the Command and General Staff Course at
the AFP Command and Staff College, and two years later he took a Joint Service
Staff Course in Australia.
Long list of victims
When he exits the military service this Sept. 11 – which is also the fifth
commemoration of the 9/11 bombings in the U.S. – he leaves behind a long list of
alleged victims of human rights violations in the areas where he was assigned.
Based on his declarations in various media interviews, he will perhaps even give
a hearty laugh should his record be described as a trail of blood. But his
record speaks for itself.
A close scrutiny of his record shows that many of the more prominent victims of
human rights violations in the areas where he was assigned are aging men, women,
children, and youths barely out of adolescence. Palparan would partially
acknowledge this, as he did in an interview with the Philippine Daily
Inquirer’s Fe Zamora, published last July 2, where he was quoted as saying
that women and children become natural victims in armed conflicts “because they
don't know where to run, how to hide.”
His first assignment was as a second lieutenant with the 24th Infantry Battalion
stationed in Indanan, Sulu, at the height of the revolutionary armed struggle
waged by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). He claims to have achieved
victory against the MNLF at least in Patikul, Sulu.
He himself however admits that children from the Tausug tribe – whence hail most
of the MNLF fighters – were among the victims of his men while he was stationed
in Sulu. There, he said, soldiers saw Tausug children as “future enemies, so the
thinking was to finish them off while they were still young” – a mode of
thinking reminiscent of an American general, Gen. Jacob Smith, during the
Philippine-American War who ordered the killing of everyone capable of bearing
arms – including 10-year-old boys – in Samar.
In the early 1980s, the 24th Infantry Battalion was transferred to Central
Luzon, this time to fight communist revolutionaries. By 1989 he would assume the
post of battalion commander, which he held until 1991.
A fact sheet released by Karapatan in 2004 shows Sta. Cruz, Zambales to have
particularly suffered the brunt of operations by the 24th Infantry
Battalion in 1991. In September that year, while soldiers were stationed by a
chapel there, about 100 townsfolk were arrested, interrogated, and forced to
sign “affidavits of surrender.” From Oct. 13-18, 10 families were forced to
evacuate as a result of shelling operations. Three days later, more than 1,000
residents of the same town were forced to attend a “peace rally,” in which
Palparan claimed that they were “rebel surrenderees.”
Torture of tribal elder
Karapatan's tally lists at least seven extra-judicial killings, one incident
each of massacre and assault, two grenade bombings, five harassment cases, and
five cases of illegal arrest and detention in Central Luzon during Palparan’s
first assignment there. He was also implicated in the abduction and torture of
peasant organizers and other activists during his first stint there, Karapatan
records show.
After Central Luzon, Palparan was assigned to the Cordillera region. One of the
most prominent cases of human rights violations in the said region during his
stint there was the torture of Marcelo Fakila, a leader of the Cordillera
Peoples Alliance (CPA) in Mountain Province and a village elder in Sagada.
Based on combined data from the CPA and Karapatan, in 1992 alone there were six
cases of illegal arrest, five harassment cases, one case of disappearance, one
summary execution, one case of wounding, and two cases of evacuations– all in
Mountain Province during Palparan’s assignment in the region.
After his Cordillera stint, Palparan was given a quick succession of
assignments, including the command of Task Force Banahaw – which holds
jurisdiction over Rizal and Laguna provinces south of Manila. One of the most
prominent victims of human rights violations during Palparan's stint in Task
Force Banahaw was a five-year-old child killed in Laguna in 2001.
Karapatan-Laguna listed seven killings of civilians in the province in 2001
alone.
Shocking cases
In May 2001, Palparan was deployed to head the 204th Infantry Battalion, which
holds jurisdiction over Oriental Mindoro. It is in Oriental Mindoro, under
Palparan’s command, that some of the most shocking cases of human rights
violations under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration were perpetrated.
On April 8, 2002, Expedito Albarillo, 48, a Bayan Muna (People First)
coordinator in San Teodoro was dragged by some 10 soldiers from his hut, with
his hands tied behind his back. Clinging to him and begging the soldiers for
mercy was wife Manuela, 45, also a Bayan Muna coordinator in the same town.
Shots rang out some 200 meters away, and relatives who rushed to the scene found
the couple lying on their faces, bathed in their own blood. Expedito’s left eye
was drooping from its socket.
On May 20 that same year, the Apolinar family – Ruben, 54, a retired policeman;
his wife, Rodriga, 54, a teacher; and their adopted child Niña Angela, 8 – were
gunned down also by soldiers. Ruben and Rodriga were Bayan Muna leaders in San
Teodoro.
Eight days after, it was the turn of activist Edilberto Napoles, Jr., 26, to be
killed. He was gunned down near the Bayan Muna office in Calapan City.
The cases of the Albarillo couple, the Apolinar family, and Napoles were among
those that prompted a fact-finding mission into human rights violations in
Oriental Mindoro in April 2003.
Among the leaders of the said mission were Eden Marcellana, secretary-general of
Karapatan-Southern Tagalog; and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy. They themselves
would end up losing their lives in the hands of soldiers from the 204th Infantry
Battalion. The photos of the two that were used for Terror in Mindoro – a
book on the Mindoro killings published by Justice for Eden and Eddie, Justice
for All in cooperation with the Ecumenical Consortium for a Just Peace – showed
their bodies bearing marks of torture.
The killings of Marcellana and Gumanoy stirred public outrage enough to get
Palparan relieved from the 204th Infantry Battalion and transferred to Rizal.
His Oriental Mindoro record, based on Karapatan data, totaled 326 human rights
violations involving 1,219 individual victims.
In the very week of Palparan's transfer to Rizal, based on an article by
Bulatlat’s Aubrey Makilan, the chief of a barangay (village) security force
in Antipolo City was killed. Before that he was repeatedly questioned by the
military on his alleged connections with the New People's Army (NPA).
Iraq mission
In February 2004, Palparan was assigned to head an AFP contingent sent on a
“humanitarian” mission to Iraq. He returned seven months later, was given a
Medal of Valor, and appointed chief of staff of the Philippine Army.
In February 2005 he was called back into the field as commanding officer of the
8th Infantry Division, which covers Eastern Visayas. The most prominent victims
of human rights violations in the region during Palparan’s stint there are
lawyer Felidito Dacut, youth organizer Marvin Montabon, and Rev. Edison Lapuz.
Dacut, 51, a leader of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and Bayan
Muna in Eastern Visayas, was on his way home aboard a jeepney when killed March
14, 2005. As the jeepney cruised along Arellano Street in Tacloban City, Leyte,
two men aboard a motorcycle drove near the victim, and one fired a shot behind
him. The bullet pierced through his heart and instantly killed him.
Earlier that day, soldiers had gone to Montabon’s home in Tarangnan, Samar and
shot him before burning the house. The young man was burned inside the house.
Lapuz, Eastern Visayas conference minister of the United Church of Christ in the
Philippines (UCCP) and chairman of Katungod-Sinirangang Bisayas, the Eastern
Visayas chapter of Karapatan, had just come from the burial of his father when
he was killed May 12, 2005. He was then busy organizing a mining conference for
church people in the region.
Palparan's record in Eastern Visayas shows a total of 570 human rights
violations involving 7,561 individuals, 1,773 families, 110 communities and ten
organizations all in a span of six months – based on Karapatan data.
In September last year, Palparan was assigned to head the 7th Infantry Division
– thus bringing him back to Central Luzon more than 20 years after he was first
deployed there.
Aging men, women, children, and youths as victims
Among the more prominent victims of human rights violations in Central Luzon
under Palparan’s command are Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan, both students of
the University of the Philippines (UP); and peasant organizer Manuel Merino –
who were abducted by soldiers on June 26 in Hagonoy, Bulacan and are still
missing.
Empeño, a graduating BA Sociology student, was in Hagonoy doing research on a
peasant community for her thesis.
It was dawn and she and Cadapan, a youth organizer in the same town, were asleep
when soldiers barged into the hut they were staying in. The fact that Cadapan
was then five months pregnant did not protect her from a punch in the stomach.
Both were blindfolded; in Empeño’s case, her eyes were covered with a shirt that
had been forcibly removed from her.
The soldiers then proceeded to Merino’s hut a few steps away and took him as
well.
A Sept. 3 report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer cited Karapatan data
pointing to 136 cases of human rights violations in Central Luzon under
Palparan's command from September 2005 to August 2006. Of these, there were 71
summary executions, five massacres, 14 frustrated killings, and 46 enforced
disappearances.
From the various interviews that Palparan has given to the media all these years, he has come across as one who is wont to boast of his accomplishments. He claimed victory against the Moro “rebels” in Patikul, Sulu and he has been claiming victory after victory against the communist “rebels” after that.
Whenever he exits from an assignment, however, he leaves behind a list of
victims of human rights violations – civilians at that, and many of the more
prominent ones being aging men, women, children, and youths barely out of
adolescence.
Thus is the trail that Palparan leaves behind when he retires this Sept. 11. He
exits from the military in the very good graces of the Arroyo administration,
which conferred awards on him – first the Medal of Valor in 2004 and then the
Distinguished Service Star Award earlier this year – and heaps lavish praises on
him, as Macapagal-Arroyo did during her State of the Nation Address (SoNA) last
July, and has now even given him a new job. Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Media Center
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