Palparan aide acquitted

MANILA, Philippines—A Manila court Wednesday cleared an associate of retired Gen. Jovito Palparan of complicity in the country’s first-ever court case involving extrajudicial killings, saying the exclusion of the so-called “butcher of activists” from the charges weakened the case.

In a landmark ruling, Judge Silvino Pampilo Jr. of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 26 acquitted Aniano “Silver” Flores for the May 28, 2002 murder of Edilberto “Choy” Napoles.

Describing the cases as “half-baked,” the judge also dismissed the frustrated case filed against Flores, a former communist rebel-turned-military agent, by Napoles’ colleague Ruel Landicho.

Napoles, then the provincial coordinator of the Bayan Muna party-list in Mindoro, and Landicho were shot by two motorcycle-riding men in front of their office in Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro.

Napoles died on the spot while Landicho narrowly survived the attack.

Crucial witness

In his 10-page order, Pampilo said the prosecution’s failure to present Landicho as “its most important and crucial witness” during the trial spelled the doom to the cases against Flores.

The cases, he said, could have fared better in court had the Department of Justice (DoJ) included Palparan in the charge sheet.

“It is unfortunate that in the wars against criminality, it is the little fellows who easily get the axe, but the barons come out unscathed,” Pampilo said in his order.

Along with Army Sgt. Rizal Hilario, the DoJ dismissed the cases against Palparan for insufficiency of evidence three months after the killing.

“The DoJ prosecutors should have included Gen. Palparan in the case. In that way, I could have made use of the concept of command responsibility in handing out my decision,” Pampilo said.

The judge, on the other hand, directed that the cases against Flores’ co-accused, Larry Aparato, be archived as the suspect remains at large.

Special courts

It was the first court ruling on extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by government agents against members of militant organizations.

Pampilo’s sala was one of the 99 special courts that Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno created last year to hasten the resolution of unsolved murders of activists and journalists.

None of the state prosecutors and private lawyers who handled the case were present during the promulgation of the seven-year-old case Wednesday morning. –Marlon Ramos, Philippine Daily Inquirer