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ni ROSE NOVENARIO
SINOPLA ni Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo si Army Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr., sa red-tagging sa isang lady journalist na iniulat ang umano’y pagtortyur ng militar sa dalawang Aeta na kinasuhan ng paglabag sa Anti-Terror Act.
Si Parlade ay Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) chief at tagapagsalita ng National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Binigyan diin ni Panelo na nasa panig siya ng Commission on Human Rights (CHR) sa pagdepensa kay inquirer.net reporter Tetch Torres-Tupas na ibinatay sa Supreme Court records ang iniulat niyang tinortyur ng Philippine Army 7th Infantry Division ang dalawang Aeta.
Giit niya, hindi kokonsintihin ng gobyerno ang pagkakamali ng mga opisyal ng pamahalaan.
“In this particular issue, I will side with the CHR after General Parlade threatened to sue the reporter under the Anti-Terror law,” aniya sa programang Counterpoint.
“It is not because we are both in the government, we will support you even you are wrong,” dagdag niya.
Nabasa niya ang ulat ni Tupas at kombinsido siyang straight news ito.
“I watched General Parlade being interviewed on TV, and he kept on insisting that his statement was based on previous incidents. He said there were other cases. But General Parlade, we are talking about a particular news article written by the reporter. Based on the written article, it was straight news,” giit ni Panelo.
Hindi aniya laging maipagtatanggol ni Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana si Parlade lalo na’t mali ang heneral.
“The reporter was not spreading lies, she was just quoting the allegations filed. We are supporting General Parlade’s campaign against the communists. We can assure everybody that the administration will not mum about this when we know he is wrong. We will express our observation,” ani Panelo.
Matatandaan, inakusahan ni Parlade si Tupas na hinango ang kanyang ulat mula sa US-based Human Rights Watch at media group na Kodao na umano’y propaganda machine ng kilusang komunista.
