The real terrorist is in uniform and that is Gen. Palparan

Fr. Santiago "Sanny" Salas
Spokesperson in Eastern Visayas
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
March 14, 2005

For confirmation, contact:
Roy Santos, NDF-EV Media Liaison Officer
Cellphone No. 0918-3112138

The ugly face of state fascism and terrorism was bared by Gen. Jovito Palparan to the mass media last March 5. In his first media appearance in Tacloban City, the new chief of the 8th Infantry Division expressed his contempt for press freedom and his approval of the censorship being proposed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Palparan also showed that he is really a terrorist in uniform by bragging of his impunity for his war crimes, and threatening the escalation of fascist offensives and the elimination of the "enemies of the state"�armed and otherwise�in the coming months.

We in the NDF-Eastern Visayas share the outrage of the mass media and the public over these statements worthy of the fascist thug that Palparan is. The 8th ID commander echoes the line by the AFP top brass that media should practice self-censorship and that those who entertain so-called terrorists should be penalized. This hamfisted approach by Palparan and the AFP reflects the dangerous trend towards outright fascist repression by the Arroyo regime. Taking advantage of tragic bombing incidents in Manila and Mindanao and so-called "terrorist threats", the Arroyo regime is also pushing for the curtailment of civil liberties through repressive anti-terrorist legislation and a national ID system proposal. The fascist thrust of the regime fits hand in glove with its implementation of imperialist globalization that is causing grave economic crisis, social destabilization, and resistance both armed and unarmed.

The Arroyo regime wishes to gag the media, suppress its perceived enemies conveniently caricatured as "terrorists", and ride roughshod over the people with its unpopular, pro-imperialist, fascist and corrupt administration. That is why Palparan is in Eastern Visayas in time to sow the same climate of fear as he did from the 1980s in Cordillera, Central Luzon, and especially Southern Tagalog. That is why Palparan could brazenly make the indecent proposal that media ignore "terrorists" and dogmatically take military propaganda as the only and unvarnished truth. Consistently rewarded and backed by the Arroyo regime, Palparan could thus slither his way past such concerns as human rights and international humanitarian law, even as he speaks now of physically eliminating any opposition to the reactionary government�both the "agitators" and the "armed enemies of the state".

It is therefore a grotesque joke and pure cynicism for a pariah like Palparan, someone with no ethics and no regard for the rules of war, to deign to lecture the media on ethics and responsibility. Palparan sneers at those who demand justice for his violations of human rights and the international rules of war. It is in this way he contemptuously and systematically violated the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) between the NDF and the Philippine government, the very laws of the reactionary government, and the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights instrumentalities.

As commanding officer of the 24th Infantry Battalion in Central Luzon from the late 1980s to 1991, Palparan was implicated in the abduction and torture of peasant organizers and other activists, mass arrests and fake "NPA" surrenders, and bombardment of a civilian community. In 1992 alone while in Mountain Province, Cordillera, where he was reassigned, the atrocities under his command involved six cases of illegal arrest, five harassment cases, one case of disappearance, one summary execution, one case of wounding, and two cases of evacuation. As head of Task Force Banahaw in Rizal and Laguna, 61 human rights violations in the latter province were noted in 2001 under his watch. In less than two years as commanding officer of the 204th Infantry Brigade in Oriental Mindoro from late 2001 to April 2003, the military murdered 27 defenseless civilians and activists, including human rights leader Eden Marcellana who was investigating the atrocities.

The 8th ID commander shabbily claims that he is as innocent as a lamb for his war crimes, because the cases against him are not prospering in the courts of the reactionary government. On the contrary, such a fact is no absolution but a monumental condemnation of the reactionary government: that someone who grievously violated human rights and the international rules of war has never been punished, but climbs the ladder of promotion on the skulls of his victims. Because there is no justice under the reactionary government, it is the people's revolutionary government that will make certain of justice by pursuing, arresting, prosecuting and punishing Palparan and his ilk.

But intensifying repression never will succeed in Eastern Visayas as elsewhere, including Palparan's previous assignments. The revolutionary movement here and in the entire country could prevail for more than 30 years over reactionary regimes that were all backed and armed by US imperialism. How much more over the comparatively weaker Arroyo regime, in the throes of the worst crisis in Philippine history, and with its military wracked with corruption and disunity? In fighting a just and correct war, the unity of the people and the revolutionary movement can never waver, but grow even stronger in the face of excesses in the enemy's unjust war and losing course. The New People's Army, which Palparan never defeated in his entire military career, continues to grow in strength and is ready to intensify guerrilla offensives as the answer to the worsening crisis and fascism.

The mass media and the people must remain vigilant and militant in order to frustrate Gen. Palparan's bluster for the suppression of press freedom and other democratic rights. In ranting at "enemies of the state" and browbeating the journalists in the region , Palparan only exposes that he is really against the people of Eastern Visayas and their democratic issues, and all media reporting that takes the side of the people instead of the Arroyo regime. Thus it is only correct that Palparan should be called what he really is: an enemy of the people. And like all those who came before him and all those who will come after him, the people and the revolutionary movement of Eastern Visayas can say one thing in common with these fascist braggarts.

They always enter with a bang and exit with a whimper.#

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