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Lawyer, kin of missing students slam Palparan's Bilibid interview

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ABS-CBN News

MANILA — A lawyer on Thursday questioned the media interview with retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., who was convicted for the 2006 kidnapping of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno.&quot;How could a convicted felon serving life for depriving people of their basic human rights be able and allowed to give media interviews at the behest of government officials?&quot; National Union of Peoples&#x27; Lawyers president Edre Olalia said in a statement.&quot;Do the courts, Bureau of Corrections, and Department of Justice know this?&quot;Olalia, who represented the families of the missing students, warned that allowing Palparan&#x27;s interview &quot;may be laying the predicate to make him walk soon&quot;.&quot;This is not only thumbing one&#x27;s nose at our justice and penal system but mocks equal protection of the law and may be laying the predicate to make him walk soon,&quot; he said.Palparan was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2018 and is detained inside the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. He was interviewed by National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict spokesperson Lorraine Badoy, which aired on Pastor Apollo Quiboloy&#x27;s SMNI Wednesday.The mothers of Empeño and Capadan called the Palparan interview a &quot;travesty of justice&quot; 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 2 hours, when Palparan is now a convicted criminal,&quot; Concepcion Empeno, mother of Karen, said in a statement.&quot;The courts have convicted him, with overwhelming evidence and witness testimonies, for taking away our daughters. What a travesty of justice!” she added.Empeno also questioned why the interview was allowed in the first place.“They gave the convicted Palparan all the freedom to speak to the public. How about our daughters, did he give them a chance to speak and defend themselves? No! They remain missing to this day, for 15 years, while Palparan is alive and well,” she said.Erlinda Cadapan, mother of Sherlyn, slammed the NTF-ELCAC for &quot;mocking the partial justice we attained by holding accountable Palparan on the disappearance of Karen and Sherlyn.&quot;&quot;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,&quot; she said.Cadapan supports calls to abolish NTF-ELCAC, which she said that with its existence, &quot;the government continues in its systematic red-tagging of activists and persons resulting in real life harm on them.&quot;ABS-CBN News sought the Bureau of Corrections&#x27; reaction on the issue but has yet to receive a reply as of posting time. — With a report from Mike Navallo, ABS-CBN News

The mothers of Empeño and Capadan called the Palparan interview a 'travesty of justice' and “a cheap, desperate attempt to vindicate criminals and rights violators.”