Militant fishermen urge government to capture Palparan in a week

ANGELES CITY ,Philippines  – Fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) yesterday urged President Aquino to direct law enforcement agencies to impose a one-week deadline for the capture of retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan.

“Malacañang, with all its personnel, resources and intelligence funds, can capture Palparan even in less than a week,” national chairman Fernando Hicap said.

Hicap, in a statement, warned that the former military official is “armed and dangerous” and that “the general public is not safe with this heartless and ruthless criminal on the loose.”

Pamalakaya, which claimed that some of its members were Palparan’s alleged victims, said “relatives of his counter-insurgency exploits and the Filipino public are getting impatient with the slow action of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).”

“Mr. Palparan is not only a certified fugitive from justice. He is armed and dangerous and is known for his business of killing political activists and innocent people in the name of national security doctrine and his crazy anti-communist advocacy,” said the Pamalakaya statement.

Hicap said some members of the police and military who could be sympathetic to Palparan might actually know where the fugitive general has been hiding.

“The butcher is their own creation and these reactionary institutions have cherished Palparan’s political killing spree since his integration in the military,” he added.

NBI-Central Luzon director Ricardo Diaz was quoted as saying that Palparan was supposed to surrender on Friday but this did not push through.

Palparan, together with Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado, S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio and M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario, were charged for the kidnapping of University of the Philippines student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in Hagonoy, Bulacan in June 2006, or three months before Palparan retired as commander of the 7th Infantry Division based in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija province.

In 2008, Pamalakaya filed a P25-million libel case against Palparan before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court but the case was dismissed due to the court’s lack of jurisdiction.

The court said the case should have been filed in Tarlac City where the Northern Luzon Command, the mother unit of Palparan’s infantry division, was based.

Pamalakaya said Palparan singled out the fisherfolk group as machinery of the New People’s Army (NPA) in its monthly collection of P50,000 revolutionary tax from fishpond operators and were recruiting residents to join the NPA.

Pamalakaya denied Palparan’s allegations.