A COURT in Bulacan on Monday found former general Jovito S. Palparan Jr. and two other Army officers guilty in the abduction of the two still-missing University of the Philippines coeds Karen Empeno and Sheryl Cadapan, and sentenced them to reclusion perpetua.
Aside from Palparan, also found guilty of the crime were Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, Jr. and Staff Sgt. Edgardo Osorio.
The reading of the verdict on the 2006 kidnapping in Branch 15 of the Bulacan Regional Trial Court in Malolos was punctuated midway by Palparan’s act of protest, when he suddenly shouted, “Duwag! Duwag ka, Judge!” (Coward! You are a coward, judge], according to radio reports.
This was confirmed to BusinessMirror by Edita T. Burgos, mother of another missing farmer-activist Jonas Burgos. She has been in solidarity with the mothers of the missing UP coeds and attended the promulgation Monday morning.
Besides calling Judge Alexander P. Tamayo names like “duwag” and “tarantado”, Palparan also called out to the prosecutors and the families of the victims, “humanda kayo!” (Be ready, an implied threat of reprisal).
The judge promptly cited him in contempt, but Palparan reportedly said it did not matter if he is jailed for contempt, as he has been handed down a long prison sentence anyway.
The case arose from the kidnapping of the two UP students in 2006, while they were doing research in Hagonoy town, and were seized by apparent military men.
Palparan went into hiding after the prosecutors in the kidnapping case filed by the coeds’ parents filed the charges in the Bulacan court. He was found, three years later, living in an apartment near the main campus of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Sta. Mesa, Manila.
A key witness in the case was the testimony of a young farmer, who was separately seized by the military along with his brother. The farmer, Raymond Manalo, testified that while he was being held in an apparent safehouse, he saw one of the coeds.
[bctt tweet=”Palparan Jr. was a key figure in the Arroyo regime’s crackdown on communist rebels.” username=”businessmirror”] He was later elected party-list representative on retirement, but was charged for the kidnapping after his Congress term.
Image credits: AP / Bullit Marquez