Palparan tracker teams formed

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines   – Chief Superintendent Edgar Ladao, police Regional Office-3 (PRO3) director, yesterday ordered all the provincial and city police chiefs in the region to form tracker teams to hunt for retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan.

Malolos City Regional Trial Court branch 14 Judge Teodora Gonzales had issued last Dec. 19 a warrant of arrest for him.

The Malolos RTC issued a hold departure order (HDO) against Palparan following his indictment for the disappearance of University of the Philippines student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño in 2006.

Aside from Palparan, Gonzales also issued the HDOs against his co-accused, military officers Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado Jr., S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio and M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario.

Ladao also instructed the provincial and city police chiefs to submit their compliance report to his office or the Regional Investigation and Detection Management Division.

“You are directed to organize your respective tracker teams to implement the warrant of arrest against Palparan,” he told the police chiefs.

Palparan was reportedly seen with several bodyguards armed with short and high-powered firearms.

Antonio Diaz, regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said that the retired general was seen by a source that requested anonymity.

Palparan reportedly vanished after he attempted to board a flight to Singapore at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Angeles City last Dec. 19.

Meanwhile, the militant group Families of Desaparecidos for Justice denounced the transfer of Palparan’s co-accused Anotado and Osorio from the Bulacan jail to military custody.

“We strongly demand they be placed in a regular jail,” said Concepcion Empeño, mother of one of the two disappeared University of the Philippines students, and vice chairperson of Families of Desaparecidos for Justice.

Judge Gonzales ordered on Friday the transfer of detention of Anotado and Osorio to the Philippine Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig from the Bulacan Provincial Jail after the judge granted their request. 

“What are they doing in their home base? This is adding insult to injury. We were the ones who lost our children, we were the ones who went looking for them and we filed a case before the courts, now they want to make fools out of us,” said Linda Cadapan, mother of Sherlyn.

Soldiers in Hagonoy, Bulacan on June 26, 2006, allegedly accosted Sherlyn and Karen.

Linda Cadapan said that the court failed to inform the complainants about the soldiers’ request to be transferred to military custody.

“We were not informed and were denied our right to oppose this preposterous move by the courts,” she said.

Both mothers demanded that all those accused in the Cadapan-Empeño kidnapping and serious illegal detention case be detained at the Malolos Provincial Jail and not be given any special treatment like those granted to former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who is now detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center pending her trial for electoral sabotage charges.

“We appeal to Judge Teodora Gonzales to withdraw the granting of the transfer of detention of both Lt. Col. Anotado and S/Sgt. Osorio to Fort Bonifacio and bring them to the Malolos Provincial Jail,” they said.

– With Sandy Araneta