An Open Letter From MGJP's Family
It has been almost three years since my father, Retired Major General Palparan, has seen the inside of a mall, the panting faces of our pet dogs, or even his favorite rocking chair at home. What have replaced those now are the corners of his tiny detention cell, the 3,000 inmates at the congested Bulacan Provincial Jail and the faceless threat of the NPA hit squad. That is apart from experiencing the humidity and other conditions no doctor would recommend for a 64-year old man. “But I have experienced similar conditions,” he tells me. “This comes with the job”. By this time in our visit, he is making coffee for his 77-year old cellmate while trying to present us a supposedly calming smile. I know this facade of his. This was his faint smile when he tried to calm me down back in high school because I caught him reading an intelligence report. It read: “Assets confirmed LIQUIDATION order from NPA Regional Command.”

This is what he has been reduced to after 33 years in the Army protecting people in the countryside from the violence of communist rebels. He instructs me to set my emotions aside, like he always does, because “there is still hope and we have a lot to do,” he says. The reason for his stay in jail is the rather dubious but eternally damaging charges of Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention. I say “dubious” because the Law dictates that these charges are meant for private citizens acting on their own free will, and not for government servicemen. These are but tiny details of what is happening in my father’s case that I can only speculate as manipulations favoring his enemies. I and my family have been silent throughout this debacle because we do not have millions of pesos to spend on publicity. But now, I am writing this piece in fervent hope that people will start to see the reality of the proceedings itself. What is shocking is the number of instances when the proper channels were ignored and the court itself openly exhibited its bias against my dad. It is very disheartening to be one of the few people to ever know the little details that, if acknowledged by the court, would change the tides. So here is our side, here are the details as revealed to me by my father face to face.

Dad has certification proving that the alleged victims Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan who are painted as UP students on a noble cause in Hagonoy, Bulacan have actually dropped out of UP 5 years prior to the alleged incident. Army Intelligence and rebel returnees already had reports regarding the presence of two female “amazon” NPA fighters known as “Ka Liza” and “Ka Sierra” who were known to harass fishing pond owners to collect their “revolutionary tax”. Hagonoy locals said that these two amazons, whom they have come to fear, have been abducted by unidentified armed men. Incidentally, militant groups also reported an alleged abduction of two women known as Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno on the same date and place the two NPA fighters have been reportedly abducted. Therefore, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno must be the two amazons sighted by the locals.

The first ever legal document about this case was an affidavit filed by a supposed witness known as “Wilfredo Ramos”. He stated that he saw armed men in civilian clothing abducting two women near his home using a passenger jeep. He later changed this and said that the men were in military uniform in a stainless “owner type” jeep. At the same time, rights group Karapatan identified a stainless jeep with the plate number of one that was parked openly at a Military Detachment in Hagonoy as the one used in the abduction. I only hope that this Ramos has the eyesight of an eagle because the alleged crime supposedly happened at least less than a hundred feet away. And in pitch black darkess of the provinces, it’s already a feat to just see what’s in front of you. So I suppose this is saying that the fiscal and the courts are acknowledging that Mr. Ramos really does have superhuman eyesight. He should be researched by scientists because of this, then.

The testimony of Ramos and others mobilized by Karapatan were deemed insufficient to link my dad to the alleged crime. This is why not one complaint filed against him in many years ever materialized into real cases. Even when their so-called star witness Raymond Manalo surfaced in 2008 and the complainants availed of the Writ of Amparo that summoned all documents and persons involved, the Supreme Court did not warrant the filing of the cases against my dad.

The change of government administration and the assumption of Leila De Lima as Department of Justice Secretary were accompanied by very disturbing twists to my dad’s legal struggles. Initially, the mothers of the victims and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) filed 9 cases with the Department of Justice. The cases were Arbitrary Detention, Abduction, Rape, Physical Injury and 5 others. The NUPL is known to support the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which wants my dad’s head on a platter.

But dad and his camp were able to answer all the accusations against them and all the cases were dropped. But then in the same resolution of the 9 cases, the Department of Justice (DOJ) headed by Leila De Lima, surprised my dad and his lawyers with two (2) new charges never mentioned in his proceedings before: Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention. The first 9 charges were bailable, meaning he can still stay out of jail while hearing his charges. But the two new charges were non-bailable. Defendants of non-bailable charges need to be arrested first before trials begin.

I remember seeing on TV that the Police were already on the hunt for my dad. We were all stunned. It all could have been perfectly fine if these new charges were mentioned in the Preliminary Investigation of the complaint. Dad would have had the chance to answer them, as would anyone when given the chance to defend himself. The Preliminary Investigation (PI), as a legal proceeding, must not contain any surprises of this kind. With 9 months of proceedings and the best lawyers the NUPL can provide like Edre Olalia, they should have known what to file appropriately from the start based on their presented facts. Then, dad voiced out to me that there is no other person responsible for such a meticulous legal maneuver than Leila De Lima herself. Dad told me that when De Lima was still the Commissioner on Human Rights, he and former Congressman Jun Alcover of ANAD Partylist exposed that De Lima is actually the cousin-in-law of Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the violent New People’s Army. “I cannot see any other explanation,” he added.

In one of the sessions, the Philippine Army assigned additional security to dad. One of them was Staff Sgt. Edgar Osorio. Dad told me he never recalled meeting him before that day. This was also confirmed by Osorio himself. What was troubling was that during the Preliminary Hearing, the complainant’s witness, Mr. Ramos pointed Osorio as one of the men who were supposedly with dad during the crime. Hence, the poor fellow was included in the case. In a matter of seconds, one soldier went from just doing a boring, routine job to facing jail. Dad made it clear that he wanted me to show how deeply he was dismayed when this happened. I could only imagine what Osorio’s family felt.

The confusing proceedings didn’t stop there. The new charges, Kidnapping and Serious Illegal Detention, are supposedly for citizens acting on their own free will and not for servants of the government. The DOJ justified their stand, saying that dad acted without any official mission in mind. Now, this is a big conflict because even the plaintiff’s witnesses described the abductors as military personnel wearing military uniform abducting two women because they were being suspected as NPA fighters. They never mentioned anything that can be classified as a personal motive like ransom, personal malicious interest, etc.

Additionally, dad’s rank of Major General holds a pay grade of 28, meaning the DOJ should have filed the case in the Sandigang Bayan and not in the Bulacan Regional Trial Court.

As a son, I can’t help but think why my father was rail-roaded so fast. He was not able to react to the bottom-line of all this, which is jail. If one were to analyze all these elements, one would see the high probability of a blatantly aggressive plot to put dad in jail. Guilty or not, the objective against dad seems to be his loss of control over his own safety in jail. This is the reason why I advised him to go into hiding the night we all found out about his arrest warrant. I thought that there must be something in jail waiting for him. He never wanted to escape his case, he even contacted President Benigno Aquino III to tell him that he had no intention to hide, but he just needed to be assured his safety. Sadly, our President never gave him a chance. So, with no assurance that his life would be secured in jail, he took cover.

But after almost three years in hiding, he was caught by the NBI. At this juncture, our family would like to commend the raiding team for having no untoward incidents like unnecessary gunfire during his capture. In his stay at the NBI detention facility, we were personally assured by the NBI officers that they could keep dad for at least 2-3 months. This was a relief for all of us because the Bulacan Provincial Jail held an image in our minds of a nightmare. But here’s another heart-crushing shock. During the first day at the arraignment in the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 14, the NBI presented a security analysis of dad’s situation that stated they cannot hold him any longer. This resulted in his transfer to his current cell and our greatest fear. But the surprises didn’t seem to let up. In that court session, our lawyers Atty. Narzal Mallares and Atty. Diosab Formilleza cited their Motion to Quash Information because of the wrong charges that were never mentioned during the Preliminary Investigation. In proper court proceedings, the judge usually hears this out and defers the arraignment so he or she can study the side of the defendant and see what the complainant has to say about it. Shockingly enough, the judge, Hon. Teodora Gonzales, declared in court that she had already seen our motions and will deny it anyway so it was not worth looking over. The session ended with my dad being quickly thrusted into the Bulacan Provincial Jail. When we heard this, I learned how it felt like to have my heart sink. I couldn’t believe this was all happening. I thought, “This isn’t right anymore. This all looks like one big act for a bigger play.”

Then after his transfer to the BPJ, all our speculations were proven correct. I found out through assets that there are indeed active, yet concealed members of the New People’s Army “Sparrow” units or assassins in the BPJ. That is aside from those who have openly denounced their old communist affiliation.

My father is not the “Butcher” President Benigno Aquino III alluded to during a visit to the Philippine Army Headquarters. Mr. President, if you have a conscience, you should be bothered to know that my father, as a young Major, risked his life a number of times for your family in service of your mother, Former President Corazon Aquino. Her government was constantly under threat of coups d’état, including the “Black Saturday Seige” at the Philippine Army Headquarters. He, along with a team of student Scout Rangers recaptured the HPA from about a hundred rebel soldiers who surrendered to him after a firefight that almost killed him twice. It was a time of chaos, but he and his 24th Infantry Battalion had a significant share in restoring peace when they were the designated Anti-Coup Battalion under the NCR Command of then BGen Rodolfo Biazon. Former President Cory trusted my father when most soldiers were suspected coup plotters. During his time as the Commander of the anti-coup Battalion from September 1987 to December 1988, no coup was even attempted. That’s how dedicated he is to his sworn duty. He did not only neutralize the coup attempts, but he also did the same to the Alex Boncayao Brigade that went on a killing spree on civilians, soldiers and police within Metro Manila. Sir, I invoke you to see that my father is a patriot and that his enemies are the real butchers. The scorn of the soldiers to your words against him can tell you how much their fellow hero is being undermined in their eyes.

Mr. President of the Philippines, I almost lost my dad just so you can grow up safely with your mother.

I think the main point of all this is that my father is in jail because someone allegedly saw two women who were allegedly students at the time they were being allegedly abducted in an alleged jeepney, with my father allegedly acting as the alleged boss of the alleged operation and allegedly appearing before Raymond Manalo while my father’s men were allegedly torturing them at an alleged location allegedly near my father’s camp grounds. As with the solid evidence the complainants have produced, I am not aware of any.

Of all the years my father had served in the Armed Forces and the numerous complaints against him by leftists, only now did one case manage to get through, and not even in the proper manner. I urge Justice Secretary Leila De Lima to prove to us that even though you are the cousin-in-law of Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines who is out to get my father, you are still unbiased and just in your decisions.

To the parents of Sherlyn and Karen, please do not let anyone influence you in your quest for justice. I hope you realize it is more probable that the NPA itself carried out such acts and disguised themselves as soldiers because that is what they are known for. There are even numerous reports that your daughters are still alive. And I know this is a sensitive topic, but please also be unbiased in considering why your daughters have dropped out of UP 5 years prior to the alleged incident. Given that Hagonoy is crawling with NPA fighters, plus the intelligence reports of the Army, there is that big possibility that the two have joined the NPA and were punished by their own comrades. In the NPA, it is standard procedure to kill or abduct their own members just on suspicion of being potential defectors, among other things. I know how to fear for a loved one. It is not a gentle emotion. I can see why you are enraged. But please try to be reasonable and see the facts.

I once had faith in the government’s system, and I know that a man is never guilty until proven otherwise. So, I say to the government: show my father and his supporters that the “Matuwid na Daan” truly serves everyone.

We are his family and I am his son. We cannot and will not sit around while my father goes through the dangers brought about by this mockery of his service to our country.