Musings over Palparan

Published on January 25, 2010

By KARLOS MANLUPIG
Regional Spokesperson
League of Filipino Students-Southern Mindanao
Posted by Bulatlat.com

One would visualize a butcher as a person covered with blood after meticulously chopping and carving an animal in a slaughterhouse. For a man to be labeled a butcher, that person must have done something really brutal. “Berdugo” in the native language, “butcher” is by and large used to tag someone who has the reputation to have a hand in a series of massacres and other fascist acts.

A retired General and now a party-list Representative, Jovito Palparan is notorious as the epitome of fascism in the country. Execrated by the people, Palparan is now again on the loose to sow fear, deception and murders in Davao.

The Making of a Murderous Psychopath

Born in Cagayan de Oro City, Palparan studied in the University of the East and expeditiously rose to the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He was called to active duty in the AFP in 1973 and served as a lieutenant in Basilan for eight years. Palparan was reportedly wounded during an encounter with armed guerillas belonging to the Moro National Liberation Front.

After his stint in Basilan, he was promoted to become the commander of the 24th Infantry Battallion bringing with him his McCarthyist antics of terrorism spilling blood all over the National Capital Region as early as 1987. In his delusion to crush the legal progressive and underground movement, Palparan’s barbaric exploits caused the death of countless lives.

Palparan then emerged in the center stage as one of the prized weapons of mass deception and destruction of the government against the people’s movement for national liberation and democracy. His expertise includes summary executions, abductions, tortures, harassments, indiscriminate bombing and strafing, enforced disappearances and brainwashing through black propaganda.

Reports recorded by human rights group Karapatan identified 39 cases of extra-judicial killings, 11 failed killings and 5 enforced disappearances in his stint in the Southern Tagalog Region. Palparan was transferred as commander of the 8th Infantry Division in Samar and there he raised the record of 25 extra-judicial killings, 9 failed killings, and 12 enforced disappearances. Some 7,250 individuals, 5,223 families at 141 communities fell victim to intensified militarization. And as the commanding general of the 7th Infantry Division assigned in Central Luzon, he collected 77 bodybags of victims of extra-judicial killings, 15 attempted murders and 42 enforced disappearances.

One of the highlighted cases of Palparan’s malfeasance is the abduction of University of the Philippines student leaders Karen Empeño and Sheryl Cadapan and peasant Manuel Merino in Bulacan. The abduction created uproar from the UP community, human rights organizations, civil society and even from groups abroad. The statement of the Manolo brothers who were also abducted by the military and managed to escape reinforced the evidences. According to sworn statement of Raymond Manolo, they were detained with Karen, Sheryl and Manuel in a military camp in Bulacan. Raymond was able to have a discussion with them and witnessed how Sheryl attempted to escape. The military agents went berserk when they found out about Sheryl’s plan. “They delivered heavy punches to the whole of Sheryl and Karenís bodies, their mouths bled, they were hanged upside down with only one foot tied while naked. Then the military poured water in their nostrils,” Manolo affirmed in his sworn statement.

The numbers are enough to attest that Palparan is indeed a murderous psychopath. His atrocities caused an international alarm stirring the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the United Nations to conduct an investigation. The Phillip Alston Report and HRW concluded that Jovito Palparan is liable for the countless cases of human rights violations in the Philippines. The Melo Commission created in 2006 also concluded that “there is certainly evidence pointing the finger of suspicion at some elements and personalities in the armed forces, in particular General Palparan, as responsible for an undetermined number of killings, by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings.”

Palparan takes pride over his so-called exploits: “The killings are being attributed to me. But I did not kill them. I just inspire the triggermen.”

By praising Palparan, Arroyo is sending an unambiguous message. That her administration rewards, not penalizes, those who participate and promote the murders of those regarded as oppositions, leftists and communists.

Tito Palpy

Student activists, as a joke, refer to Palparan as Tito Palpy and usually use it to scare some kasamas when they go home late, “Hala ka, naa baya si Tito Palpy diha sa gawas sa gate. Ginahulat ka.”

Just a few months away from the first automated election in our country, the Davao region is under threat by the presence of the “Butcher” and his brainwashing buddy Pastor “Jun” Alcover. Their mission- to demonize the MAKABAYAN senatoriables Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza and party-lists Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela, Kabataan, ACT and Katribu and disenfranchise the legitimate struggle of the Filipino people.

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