Communist Party of the Philippines
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today said the
long overdue arrest of former Philippine Army general Jovito Palparan this
morning was carried out by the agents of the Aquino government amid continuing
widespread military and police abuses and grave violations of human rights,
especially against peasant masses and minority peoples.
“Thousands of victims of General Palparan’s campaign of
terror have long demanded justice for the crimes and abuses perpetrated by the
fascist troops of the AFP under his command,” said the CPP.
The CPP said Palparan’s campaign of terror was directed
against unarmed activists among the ranks of peasants, workers, students and
other oppressed sectors who helped organize the downtrodden masses to enable
them to defend their rights and advance their democratic interests.
“For all of General Palparan’s acerbic rhetoric against the
New People’s Army (NPA), his battlefield record against the NPA was
unremarkable,” pointed out the CPP. “He gained his notoriety in employing AFP
terrorism against civilians and activists whom he invariably regarded and
treated as armed combatants.”
Wherever he was assigned, General Palparan maintained and
directly commanded a death squad which carried out abductions, torture and
extrajudicial killings against activists and suspected supporters of the
revolutionary movement.
He and his men were directly responsible for the 2006
abduction, torture and disappearance of UP activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen
Empeño and their companion, peasant activist Manuel Meriño in Hagonoy, Bulacan;
the 2006 abduction and torture of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, in San
Ildefonso, Bulacan; the 2003 killing of human rights activist Eden Marcellana
and peasant activist Eddie Gumanoy in Mindoro; and numerous other crimes.
“The AFP has officially endorsed, supported and perpetrated
the terror tactics employed by Palparan against the people,” said the CPP. “He
was assigned as head of several Army battalions and divisions in Ilocos,
Mindoro, Eastern Visayas and Central Luzon during which he unleashed a reign of
terror, abuses, abductions, torture, enforced disappearances, food and economic
blockades and martial law restrictions against entire communities.”
The CPP pointed out that the Aquino regime has yet to firmly
condemn the grave abuses of human rights committed by the AFP under its Oplan
Bantay Laya I and II campaigns of suppression. “Not a single military official
has been put to account for more than a thousand cases of extrajudicial killing
and countless cases of human rights abuses perpetrated by the AFP.”
“The AFP’s official human rights rhetoric is a mere facade
to conceal the brutalities perpetrated by its commanders and troops in
conducting its Oplan Bayanihan was of suppression, mostly directed against the
civilian population, drawing from the methods employed by the fascist general
Palparan,” said the CPP.
“The crimes perpetrated then by Palparan continue to this
day, despite all the loud peace and human rights rhetoric of Aquino and his
military and security officials,” added the CPP. It pointed out to the killing
by armed state agents of peasant activist Gregorio Galacio last July 19. For
many years, Galacio was actively seeking justice for his daughter Grecil, a
9-year old schoolgirl killed by elements of the 28th IB in 2007 who claimed
that she was a child soldier of the NPA to conceal their crime.
In Iloilo
“Abuses of human rights against the people are worst in
areas where the AFP conducts its Oplan Bayanihan operations, mostly in rural
hinterlands, where foreign big mining, logging and plantation operations seek
to rob and plunder the land from the peasants and minority peoples,” added the
CPP.
“From the Mountain Province in the Cordilleras to the
Pantaron range of the Talaingods in Mindanao, the AFP drops bombs and fire
artillery against farming communities, entire combat units swoop down on
residential areas, occupy the people’s homes, accusing them of supporting the
New People’s Army, turning schools, day care centers and barangay halls into
barracks, endangering the people’s lives, violating their civil and political rights
with impunity and traumatizing children and elderly people.”
“Indeed, the arrest of General Palparan has been effected,
but his fascist legacy of extrajudicial killings and military terrorism
continues to thrive under the Aquino regime.”
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