01/13/2012
Jovito Palparan is supposed
to be the “butcher,” “serial murderer” and “berdugo” accused of hunting,
killing or making countless communists and New People’s Army (NPA)
adherents “disappear” through the years. Nobody as yet epitomizes the
notion of human rights violators in the Philippines more than the
retired army general. In fact, a reward for information leading to his
capture in connection with the reported torture and disappearance of UP
students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño has now been raised to P1
million. But, as the courts have yet to try the case, howls of protests
against his “conviction by publicity” and “demonization” have also been
raised by certain quarters in the military.
Indeed, Palparan, with
his beady eyes and sharply angled, bony mien, strikes many people with
instinctive horror. And this has led to nothing short of a propaganda
boon to the anti-military Left and human rights groups.
Meanwhile,
on the other end of the spectrum, a fellow named Danilo “Danny”
Cordero, a far lesser known historical figure in Philippine political
and military history, is no less controversial — that is, if his
supposed deeds were to be ventilated as much as Palparan’s alleged
atrocities.
Danny, according to various accounts from many former
leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA that
I have heard myself, was deceased — or should I say, killed — in the
communist purges of the late 1980s. Some say this was done to silence
the history of what really transpired at Plaza Miranda — a bombing that
killed nine and injured 95 others, including many Liberal Party
candidates except Ninoy Aquino.
Accounts that trace Danny’s
liquidation to the highest leadership of the CPP-NPA have been found
credible by the likes of former Sen. Jovito Salonga (who was one of the
bombing victims in 1971), especially as these come from Cordero’s former
comrades, Ruben Guevarra and Ariel Almendral.
As soldiers
trained to fight those deemed by their higher political and military
authorities as enemies, Palparan and Cordero certainly share many things
in common. Both apparently carried out their duties with unquestioning
zeal and dedication. Both risked their lives in the endeavors they chose
and followed the dictum, “Theirs not to make reply / Theirs not to
reason why / Theirs but to do and die,” from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s The
Charge of the Light Brigade (which won me in my youth a first prize in
declamation at St. Stephen’s High School).
Yet, both of them share
also one tragic commonality that highlights their shared dilemma: The
masters they served later on turned out to be their tormentors and
executioners after the need to cover up the indefensible evils, which
they were ordered to commit, became greater. And this is a scenario that
should make all combatants from all sides pause and think.
While
the CPP-NPA and Jose Ma. Sison have persistently denied any
responsibility for the Plaza Miranda bombing to gain a propaganda coup
against Marcos, testimonies from former CPP-NPA members themselves
(including some personal friends) provide the preponderance of proof.
We
had to establish the basis for the charge against Cordero in order to
draw another comparison: Did Danny Cordero’s killing of nine totally
innocent individuals, including a five-year-old child, with the two
grenades he lobbed at Plaza Miranda constitute less of a crime than the
disappearance of two UP students, which investigators and activists
attribute to Palparan and his men?
While the Commission on Human
Rights and the Department of Justice have called Palparan to account,
shouldn’t they also, even posthumously, formally investigate the Plaza
Miranda-Cordero case?
Bringing justice to victims of human rights
violations is good for as long as authorities remain fair and
consistent. Thus, this demand for consistency brings us to so many cases
that have not been taken up with any zeal, like the killings at
Hacienda Luisita, where, in the most recent instance, 14 farm workers
from the United Luisita Workers Union and Central Azucarera de Tarlac
and their kin (including two children) were killed.
Yes, there is
pressure to safeguard human rights via the West and the US’ support of
many Left-leaning human rights groups in the Third World. But these
Western human rights bodies should also look fairly at the charges from
other countries, such as those coming from Russia’s Foreign Ministry
that lambast Guantanamo abuses and innocent death row executions, or the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s civilian killings in Libya, ad
nausea.
Cordero, once touted as one of the best of the CPP-NPA
cadres, was sacrificed at the altar of a failed communist revolution.
Palparan is on the run and may soon have to face an ignominious
surrender to the government he served in the anti-communist cause.
Palparan’s
life was never easy, I know. One of our family drivers, who once drove
for the man, tells us of his elaborate daily security rigors — and it’s
not a normal life that anyone would want. And yet, he is now being
sacrificed at another altar — the altar of human rights, which every
regular human being is required to uphold, except for those who are on
top of the totem pole or the food chain. In the case of the Philippines,
its chief violator is its so-called Big Brother, the US, which supplies
arms to our Armed Forces while channeling various legal foundation and
covert funds to the Left, the Right, as well as the Church, in tandem
with the oligarchs who run our politics and government.
As I have
said on my cable TV show with (ret.) Commodore Rex Robles, Filipinos
should debate to the death but never kill each other (except maybe those
nasty foreign interlopers). Until we learn this, there will be more
“useful idiots” sacrificed at the altar of causes and crusades that
serve only those who divide and rule.
(Tune in to Sulo ng
Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m. on 1098AM; Talk
News TV with HTL, Saturday, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on
GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, with this week’s topic, “Electric Power
Piracy 2012;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles
plus TV and radio archives)
(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman "Tiu-Laurel)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120113com6.html
