Desaparecidos laments the Court’s decision to deny the motion to transfer the convicted butcher Jovito Palparan from the Directorate for Reception and Diagnostics or DRD to the maximum security cell in the National Penitentiary. “Under the Duterte regime
Desaparecidos laments the Court’s decision to deny the motion to transfer the convicted butcher Jovito Palparan from the Directorate for Reception and Diagnostics or DRD to the maximum security cell in the National Penitentiary. “Under the Duterte regime, the culture of impunity favors the transgressor even in jail. It is an insufferable insult to us the families of victims of Palparan that he continues to escape the consequences of his brutality,” Erlinda Cadapan, mother of missing UP student Sherlyn Cadapan.
“If the law unjustly arrested Lolo Elmer of Piston 6, who is 72 years old and treated as a common criminal, what more does it take for Palparan to go to the maximum security cell and serve his life sentence?”
Cadapan added that for her, the court ruled unfairly in favor of Palparan for flimsy or even technical basis, referring to the rule of the court which says “…this court has no jurisdiction to interfere with the implementation of the Commitment Order….especially now that such cases have been elevated to the Court of Appeals.”
Conception Empeno, mother of missing UP student Karen Empeno also decried the injustice of the non-implementation of the rule of 60 days stay only in the DRD before being committed to the maximum security cell: “The justice system is playing around us twice over. First, in its failure to transfer the butcher to the maximum security cell after 60 days. Second, that it denied the motion of the prosecution to act on the matter of transfer.”
“There is no doubt that Palparan is living a privileged life inside the NBP, but it is unspeakable for Palparan to go scot-free if the Court of Appeals reverse the Court’s ruling of life sentence for the butcher,” Empeno added.
Desaparecidos, an organization of families and victims of enforced disappearance, is wary of unseen hands preparing for the rehabilitation of Palparan. We will be watching the resolution of the case of Palparan in the Court of Appeals because surely, Palparan could be an asset to this murderous regime.