Friday, April 1, 2022

SMNI interview with Palparan being probed by DOJ

Posted to Yahoo! News (Apr 1, 2022): SMNI interview with Palparan being probed by DOJ (By Mark Ernest Famatigan



FILE PHOTO: Retired Maj. Gen. Jovito answers questions from the media at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after his arrest on August 12, 2014. Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan is currently facing charges of kidnapping, serious illegal detention, extra-judicial killings, torture and disappearances. (Photo: Mark Fredesjed R. Cristino/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is now investigating an interview between Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) and human rights violator Jovito Palparan, who was responsible for the abduction University of the Philippines (UP) students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

DOJ Undersecretary Adrian Sugay said that the Bureau of Correction (BuCor) has already been told to “look into the matter.”


"The Secretary has directed the BuCor (Bureau of Corrections) through the undersecretary in charge of corrections, Usec. Deo Marco, to look into the matter and to see if in fact there were violations on the part of whoever initiated this interview of the guidelines of the BuCor with regard to interviewing inmates,” he said.

DOJ confirmed that “the court that convicted Gen. Palparan did not receive any request for permission to grant a media interview.”

SMNI interviewed Palparan in their segment “Laban Kasama ang Bayan”, where they talked about the armed revolution in the countryside, just one day after the 53rd anniversary of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The segment also included National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson Lorraine Badoy, who was recently tagged by an international human rights coalition as a part of the “Dirty Dozen” for being part of the “public orchestration of alleged state repression.”

Desparecidos, a group of families and close friends of victims of forced disappearance, called the interview a “travesty of justice”, and a “cheap desperate attempt to vindicate criminals and rights violators.”

“It is nauseating, to say the least, to see Palparan and this Badoy trying so hard to salvage the face of the ‘berdugo’ (butcher) for two hours, when Palparan is now a convicted criminal,” Concepcion Empeño, the mother of Karen Empeño said. “The courts have convicted him, with overwhelming evidence and witness testimonies, for taking away our daughters. What a travesty of justice!”

Erlinda Cadapan, the mother of Sherlyn Cadapan added, “To this day, Palparan continues to vilify our daughters and justify their abduction and disappearance. We say again, with the strongest conviction, that never should any person be subject to enforced disappearance.”

“This act of Palparan, and Badoy, is a cheap, desperate work of thieves. They stole our daughters, and those who continue to employ abduction and enforced disappearances should be held accountable for the rest of their lives, like what they did to us, as we remain searching for our missing loved ones,” she said..

Mark Ernest Famatigan is a news writer who focuses on Philippine politics. He is an advocate for press freedom and regularly follows developments in the Philippine economy. The views expressed are his own.

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/doj-probes-smni-interview-with-palparan-082704763.html

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